Here are the introductions of our three guest speakers!
Melissa Showalter
If I think back about my earlier career in print, one of my favorite projects of all time, it’s actually about creating sunscreen packaging for the symphony called the Daylong. It was really great because the company was based in Switzerland and it had this Swiss designer who had worked at the company, his almost his whole career as a graphic designer.
He had founded the design and the brand, then we were brought in, around the time that he retired from his career. So we got to work with him on the new vision of the brand. And it was just such an incredible experience to work with someone who lifted this company and was so supportive of our direction and the ways in which we changed it.
This was mid-2000 when everything was Helvetica and primary colors. So we definitely lived that vibe, but I learned so much about the user experience actually originally through packaging.
We did lots of research sessions with potential customers and they did these eye-tracking maps where they would look at, they would do a mock shelf and look at the way people go through the shelving of packaging and they'd create these heat maps of where their eyes kind of fell on the product.
I feel like that was such an interesting introduction to the user experience. Similar to what we do now in the digital landscape, even though it comes together in such a different way. I think I have a soft spot for the printed object and the process of having something printed too.
So that was definitely one of my favorite design projects that I've done, even though it was a while ago.
Annie Wu
One of my favorite projects that I've worked on was with the international rescue committee and it was through ideo.org. This is an interesting project because the IRC is like the largest refugee resettlement program in the US. They're really good for the first 3-6 months when refugees come to the US. But they noticed that they were a little bit weaker because clients will come back to them a year or two years later, and would still have difficulties with their financial situation.
So they were kind of building up. capacity for financial coaching and kind of building this long-term financial wellness program. It was really exciting to be brought into that process. I love that project for so many reasons besides the fact that the client was so amazing to work with, they were just so collaborative and so empathetic.
Just the ability to prototype with a client and work with folks live. I think as a designer, we are so energized seeing people interact with and touch the things that we've built. We got to do everything from coming up with a script that maybe the coach might try or like a framework or structures to designing the app.
As a designer, I also learned a lot about constraints. For instance, I was super excited to do these beautiful Technicolor assets that they could pull out for any client and make the session.
But the coach was basically like “this is great, but you know, we're a nonprofit, we can barely afford black and white printing.” Something like this full-color bleed is just not reasonable. At first, I was like, oh bummer, but through the process of learning how to work with those constraints and think about how to be creative with black and white and how to integrate color in a very small or very specific way, and use the tools that they already have. It was a very fun and exciting process to co-create with them.
Melissa Showalter
Similarity. I thought of one thing as I was reflecting on this question, but I kept thinking about it really in each scenario from a really small studio to a larger agency, and then to Airbnb.
I feel like kind of owning your own journey is always the key to really find your own voice, to tell your own story as you present work. You know, no matter if you're at a small studio presenting your work to a larger client, or if you're pitching your own work freelance, it's still really important that you learn how to tell a compelling story that guides folks through your thought process.
Because I'm sure all of you have so many different experiences of having to go in and present your work. I feel like that never really changes. It's always about advocating for your work and trying to tell the best story.
Annie Wu
The difference between in-house and agency, I kind of think of it as like, I was optimizing for different things in my career. I think that the benefit of an agency is that I get to work in a ton of different industries and touch a lot of different types of products, types of experiences.
Sometimes it would be digital, other times it would be packaging, other times it would be an in-store experience. At IDEO, 80 to 90% of the things like didn't necessarily ship, or didn't go out as we intended, it really depends on the client. That's kind of like a bummer sometimes, but at the same time, I realized like, because they didn't necessarily have to become real. We got to be so wild and like exploratory and pitch some wild design concepts. It was really fun to play in that way as a designer.
Whereas in-house, I feel like you're closer to constraints. You're talking to your engineers, you're talking to people who are building the thing, and so it's almost like a different thing that you're optimizing for. Whereas now I feel like a lot of times I'm trying to negotiate design priorities with other priorities. Whereas in the agency space, I feel it's like, oh look at this amazing thing, it could be so amazing. We are trying to bring them into that vision with us. and so it's kind of like both are really valuable. It's kind of just how you feel like playing as a designer
Melissa Showalter
And so relate to that. Being invested in the business and the overarching business versus just being given a design problem to solve.
I think one other major difference just from a career point of view. That I had never really heard of the IC track versus your track. And it kind of blew my mind because in an agency, everyone has the same path. You're the junior designer, a senior designer, a creative director.
But, I see it's an individual contributor. So you can go down that path or you can pick to go down the manager path. And so you can either stay a maker, but still, you know, have promotions or have like. Career trajectory to a design principle, or if you go down the manager path, then you're obviously managing other people.
You're managing the overarching goals of your team. You're working more cross-functionally to prioritize projects. And then your career path is like the trajectory is to a design director. And just having that choice of being able to stay in IC, but still, have a career trajectory was exciting for me.
Annie Wu
We definitely didn't have that at IDEO, IDEO is kind of like you become senior designer, then you become design lead, but design lead is kind of like project manager, design manager. I see it as they are smashed into one. and everyone's kind of on the partner track. You're all slowly making your way, eventually becoming a partner.
I totally agree about the ability to separate between manager and IC track though. I do feel like the IC leadership is still a work in progress.
I feel like I haven't seen too many organizations who've really figured it out. They have people who are ICs at a real leadership position versus people defaulting like a manager being the right path to go on for promotions and having influence.
MK Loomis
I definitely think storytelling is like a huge part of everything that you do, whether it's telling a story of how you're going to get from A to B to Z, or more of like an emotional brand story. That's definitely a skill and an art that I've had to learn over the course of my career.
I think the difference between agency and in-house. Agency you're obviously like pitching to win more work. In-house storytelling is really used to influence the trajectory of your product to get buy-in from stakeholders or even just your engineer partners.
So I think that there are different variations of storytelling, but learning how to package things up is a super important skill.
Melissa Showalter
I think it all depended on the client that we had. So at Instrument, we had different teams and so each team was focused on different client sets. We had a Nike team, a Google team, and those teams are focused solely on those larger clients.
And then we had kind of a catch-up team that did all of the other smaller projects that came in and I spent about a year on the Google team and then a little over a year on the client team, the one that was more open-ended.
On the Google team, it was definitely more about constraints. It was almost like an extension of Google. And we worked primarily on marketing landing pages. We did like the nexus marketing landing page, and then we would also do any corresponding photo shoots or video shoots needed for those marketing pages. So I got to live in both the art director world and the graphic design/web design world.
And you know, being Google and the material design definitely had a lot of constraints on this, similar to what I experienced at Airbnb today, having a more formalized design language system and that kind of like visual guidance already embedded.
But then on the client team, you know, it was much more creative like the way that Annie was describing with IDEO. We worked with a company called Chef's Feed on their app. Which has since changed a lot. It doesn't look like it did when we just signed it, unfortunately, but they wanted us to just go crazy. They wanted it to be like the rock and roll vibe of the food apps. And they're actually like if we ever get a cease and desist from the rolling stones, because they wanted the mouse and tongue logo, then we'll consider ourselves successful. I think it differs from client to client. If you list a Google or a Chef's Feed, it can just feel so wildly different.
Melissa Showalter
You should never downplay your hobbies or your extracurriculars or other things that you've experienced in your life because I feel like it always comes back full circle. When I think about my younger self, I had done a lot of ballet and modern dance before I went to college and I feel like that really gave me an interesting foundation now.
The concept of presenting your work and getting in front of people and naturally being shyer. And it's harder for me to speak in front of people, but having that background in ballet really helped me get over that fear of being up in front of people and that kind of performance, or art of storytelling.
So, yeah, I think that's just such an interesting way that the world works, and all of those different things that you do in your life, they give you your unique perspective and they influence your work as a designer. So make sure to give those things space and really prioritize them.
Annie Wu
I've been thinking about how we can play to our strengths versus thinking about our weaknesses.
I feel like earlier on in my design career, I see these other designers who are so good at pixel-perfect perfection, they're so good at spec-ing things. And I feel like, for a long time, I need to work on getting better at it.
But I feel like I unlocked so much growth for myself as soon as I was like, you know what? That's okay. I can just focus on the things that I'm strong at. And instead of trying to grow those weaknesses and positioning myself to work on projects or work on different things that are aligned with my strengths. And that has helped a lot, especially like being able to advocate and ask for those types of projects.
Something else that helped me a lot was just lots and lots and lots of crits. I love crits. I love sharing work and I think there's something amazing about seeing other people's work and seeing their process and like having their perspective on your own work.
It can sometimes be uncomfortable to share something that's not fully baked or you know, like part of the design process that maybe isn't totally there yet. But I feel like it always makes the work so much better. I always learn something from it. and I try to keep integrating that into my process.
One last thing was from one of the most talented graphic designers I've ever worked with. We collaborated actually on the cosmetics project at IDEO and he was so prolific. When he wasn't working on their project, he was just like drawing on post-its or scanning something. He used to joke that he's making a lot of trash. And it's true, he made a lot of stuff that was not good. Like not everything he makes has to be purposeful. He just really believed in play and experimenting and pushing the boundaries.
And I think part of the reason why he was so skillful is when we did have a brief or when we did have a project, he had already built up so many different visual languages or tools or things to like bring to that project and because he let himself experiment in play just made that work so much better.
So I tried to keep that in mind too. Like not everything has to be purposeful. I can just dabble. I can experiment. I can make trash.
MK Loomis
I had a creative director tell me, and it sounded harsh at the time. It was actually really helpful, kind of helped break apart my creative life from the things I get paid to do, which was “You're not here to make art.” So that kind of got me thinking, I'm here to solve problems like that is what design does.
In one way, it’s very creatively fulfilling on one part of your brain, but it's not totally freeing. That got me to start working on lots of little side projects. Giving myself really tight constraints around what was that thing that I was going to make. And so I decided on circles, it was shaped in circles, gradients in circles. Like now I have this huge library of just circles. Designed many different ways. And that was like my really tiny playground, but it felt really safe.
And then, you know, I learned a bunch of new things. Through this project, they unlocked this creativity for me. And I think often it's hard to learn a new skill, especially when you're at an agency working on a project that has a very tight deadline.
There's not really always as much room for error, um, or failure. And so I kind of took my own creative space to fail and to learn new things. That kind of translated to the way I approached my work made me feel a lot more fearless in trying new things because I had learned how to problem solve through new things.
