What Interviewing Designers Taught Me
While I worked at my internship with Nimble Kettle, I was also interviewing every designer I could get my hands on from a wide range of fields. I was able to speak with designers from Plura Sight, GitHub, Britten, Mitchell Graphics, Freelancer/Ghostly Ferns, Glide, BrandMuscle, and Rolling Stones. Each of these interviews has taught me something new about design, may it be process, industry, or purpose. This is a longer post than most but well worth the read if you are interested in design as a career.
Let’s do some introductions, shall we!
Brooklyn Brown | Senior Product Designer, GitHub
Before her new position at GitHub, Brooklyn worked at Microsoft as a Senior Product Designer.
Toby Fox | Deputy Art Director, Rolling Stone Magazine She is in-charge of front of book and back of book. She has been working at Rolling Stone Magazine for seven-eight years.
Justin Mezzell | Designer & Illustrator, PluralSight Freelance Illustrator. He has does illustrations for Google, Twitter, PayPal, Facebook, FastCompany, Wired, and Disney. He is also a self-taught illustrator and designer.
Meg Lewis | Freelancer/Creative Director,
GhostlyFerns, Sit There and Do Nothing podcaster, & Dribble podcaster Meg is a designer, performer, and comedians bringing happiness to the world through her work. She has worked with Dropbox, Buzzfeed, Google, Vox, and Brit+Co.
Valerie | Designer, Britten
Has been working for Britten for nine years.
Adrianne Ngam | Designer, Glide
She is part of a small team at Glide, a recent startup.
Kyle Rice | Designer, Rolling Stone Magazine
Ferris alumni, working at Rolling Stone Magazine for under six months. He handles a bit of everything print, social, web content, and assist with anything/everything. A big reason he was brought onto the team was to help create social media narratives rather than just sharing photos.
Matt | Lead Art Director, Rolling Stone Magazine
Matt has been at Rolling Stone Magazine for 15 years. He heavily handles feature print pages for the magazine.
Dawn Austin | Senior Graphic Designer,
BrandMuscle Dawn a Ferris alum. has been working for BrandMuscle for three years.
Jessie Peters | Designer, Mitchell Graphics
Jessie is a fellow Ferris alum and has been working for Mitchell Graphics for ten years.
Stacy Simpson | Graphic Artist, Britten
Has been working for Britten for 6 years.
I want to share with you some of these things that these interviews have taught me. New information and ideas/practices that I hope to implement into my own life (in and outside of design).
Adrianne from Glide
Don’t Pigeon Hole Yourself, Stay Open
“Try stuff, be open to opportunities…” Brooklyn said these words to me while asking her about ways to find what area of design I want to work in. This statement made me think of two quotes/sayings.
"If you're the smartest in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”
“If you’re not changing, you’re not growing.”
I like these quotes/sayings because they’ve helped me to put into perspective that change is good. When we change we better learn who we are and grow as individuals and become closer to discovering who we are at heart and what we love to do.
It is Okay to Ask for Help
Kyle, mentioned how it can be hard to ask for help. It is a common thing for people to feel that we have to figure it out all on our own. But this simply isn’t the case. Toby and Matt reenforced that with Kyle and myself during the interview, that it can be hard to come to a creative/art director and ask for help, but that’s how you are going to get better and that’s how the designs are going to get better.
Find Your Style
While speaking with Justin Mezzell I asked him his thoughts about designers not having their own design style. He said that it depends on wether you are more freelance or want to work as a studio employee. When working freelance, as he does for illustrations, many people will hire you for your design style. Having a style as a freelancer is more important than it is for a studio employee, but it is important to know your style in general.
When working for a company (rather than freelance work) it is important that your portfolio shows your style through your brand but that you can easily design something outside of your brand styles to show you are more adaptable.
Designing for Media is Different
When I reached out to fellow Ferris Alumni, Kyle Rice, he asked me if I knew that design for media was different then branding or traditional editorial. Once we were able to meet up along with his Art Directors, he explained to me why designing in media is so different.
When you design for media, there are sort-of two levels.
1.When you are at a studio, you are always experimenting, since you have different clients. So you are constantly exploring different colors and fonts and so forth. When you are in-house/single brand options are limited. So you need to be creative within the brand standards.
Matt, will utilize the select number of typefaces to be utilized to communicate different things vs being in a studio setting where the options are practically unlimited.
2. In media everything is ramped up. Everything is fast-tracked, that you have to learn to do the design process (research, discover, plan, prototype, repeat) without doing the design process.
Always knowing what the industry is doing, so when hearing, “what if we did this…” I don’t go back through the whole process, because I’ve already seen it successful elsewhere or quickly checking out if it will work.
Practice Being Creative for the Sake of Being Creative
Sometimes it’s hard to find time to be creative and sometimes our jobs don’t provide us with enough flexibility to be creative. Employees, Valerie and Stacy, from Britten have something to say about that. While speaking with Valerie I had asked her if she listens to podcasts or audiobooks about design, she responded with, “listen and read what inspires you…” Valerie said that it’s good to read and listen about design, but it is also important to take time for what inspires you, for what makes you creative.
Stacy said something very similar, she said, “creativity is something you can’t just be taught as a practice… I think the brain needs to be constantly creating and practice. Those are muscles you have to keep up.” Stacy spoke to me about how if your job doesn’t provide you the opportunities you need to be creative take time outside of work to practice being creative. What Stacy spoke to me about made me realize how true this statement is. When we are children we are constantly creating, made up stories, abstract drawings, pretending, & making a box into anything our imagination drives us to make it. But as we grow up we hit a point when we stop doing that, we forget how to pretend and loose parts of our creativity.
There is More than One Type of Design
Conducting these interviews has allowed me to see into the world of design from a new perspective. it has showed me how design is all around us, something I knew but didn’t comprehend until now. Design is in everything, music, companies, social media, media, film, and so many more.
While working in design, it’s important to find the area of design that best fits your life, life-style, and ambitions. While speaking with some of the designers they never thought they’d up up where they are today. Many believe they liked the design work for branding companies but realized they preferred in-house designing/product designing better. Jessie, from Michell Graphics, didn’t think she would end up designing for print but now loves what she does and where she is. And Dawn felt she wanted to work with concept driven work that took more time, however, she found that her skills better lie in a fast-paced setting where concepts are produced more quickly.
There is no better or right design field to be in. All that matters is what you love and enjoy what you do. There will be plenty of times you are at a job you dislike but that’s an opportunity to learn and grow. And what you enjoy doing can change, in fact I hop it does. From the time we leave college (or nail your first job after teaching ourself design) it’s important for us to be constantly trying new things, new forms of design, and expanding our knowledge and growing.
If you are someone struggling to know what you want from design or if design/or company type is a good fit for you try conducting some interviews with people.
Reach out to people you know who are in the field of friends with someone who is, reach out to a college professor to see if they can give you any leads. This was an amazing experience for me. It gave me the chance to learn so much, I couldn’t fit it all in one post. It also gave me the chance to meet so many amazing people who have opened up their world of design and shared a piece of it with me.
