I made some research about the studio and the person that I was going to talk to. I was also going to use this conversation for the studio brief 2. Had questions about his definitions of things, his travels, his studies about grids, how he sees the future of Boana, who inspires him, etc. Unfortunately, a while before the meeting was going to take place I got this e-mail:
I'm sure he was busy, because he wanted to meet me the 28th (Tuesday) and said that we had to cancel our meeting on the 2nd (Thursday). I answered to clarify if we could meet on Tuesday, not on Thursday, but never got an answer... so my guess was not.
I understand that studios might be tired of thoughtless students, I would be too... but it's just not nice when one gets thoughtless answers either. It makes me lose interest in a particular studio when I see how they handle their communications.
Chloe
The Berlin established designer and formerly student of graphic design at LCA gave us a great talk of life after college in another country. These are some of the points I found very interesting:
- Even in a city like Berlin some people will want you to work for free.
- Phone works 10 times faster than e-mails.
- Cultural shock. This is something I experienced (and sometimes still experiencing) when I moved to the UK, so it made me feel more related to her point of view.
- She moved to London because she didn't want to stay in Leeds. There was no independene from business at that time.
-This might sound very obvious, but if you don't want to be freelance you have to learn how to collaborate... and even being freelance one has to collaborate.
- Easy to move to another country because she already had clients from UK (something really useful if I want to move back to Spain and keep a high salary)
After Chloe's talk, I stayed and had a long chat with Chloe, John and Hannah sharing points of view and asking more about the professional field. At some point, she became interested in my work and asked me to show it to her. I wished she could have given me more details, but she only said it was very professional. We eventually interchanged business cards.
It was also very interesting how she actually talk about her experience as a designer and not so much about her work. I think that's what we need to hear from professionals. Their work might or not be interesting to us, but I think it is much more interesting to know what goes on behind. Also, Chloe has been the only one that embraces clients as part of the design process instead of being too bothered about them.
As a male interested in feminism I took the opportunity to personally ask her if she has had to deal with a client that treats her with less respect than a man or if the client has looked for approval of a male college. Her experiences have been positive so far, as Berlin has a strong feminist movement.
Pentagram
I didn't expect Pentagram to be how it was: that human. It has been one of the best talks I've had.
These are some of the key ideas Justus Oehler told us in his talk:
- You need to let luck find you. In other words, be visible!
- Branding was a part of the talk. I found very interesting how he used colours in the culture of Serdegna to make the logo, as well as using useless parts of old logos to make them the main identity of a brand. Deutsche Kinemahek is another great logotype made with simple elements that have different readings. (It's an M, to screens and a house). A logo is the foundation of an identity, some designers add meaningless features (AT&T) whilst other remove the name, having to add it somewhere else (nike, starbucks, etc). People are born everyday and they have to associate what the name and logo of a brand is.
- Avoid design trends.
- Good design has to clearly communicate, not confuse.
- Something I didn't know, but the human eye see vertical lines thinner than horizontal ones. So, as designer, we sometimes need to make vertical lines thicker to compensate.
- Speak about your work telling a story of the production.
- Present designs step-by-step treating them with high respect. Clients appreciate this.
- You have to accept that you can't get everything.
At the end I asked a couple of questions.
The first one was: when you look for new people to hire, do you focus on who has a stronger identity or potentially flexible individuals?
- Present work that is related to that studio you are presenting to.
- Be normal, don't pretend. Be humble, no one is finished and polished as a designer.
I was also interested about why every client works with a partner in Pentagram. His answer was simple but powerful:
- Because we love designing.
There was a girl with him in the room, and she was an intern. I really wanted to ask her many questions, and when we stood up to leave I took advantage and started a conversation with her for the few minutes we had left until leaving. She had a very interesting story, she was accepted at Pentagram after insisting 5 times. It was once that she knocked on the door and with a smile asked for a job that she was interviewed. It made me think that if I were the person in the studio, I would respect that passion. The fact that she wanted to work with them and only with them is very valuable. I forgot to ask her name because I really wanted to know more about it. We also spoke a bit about the difference in working in Germany and Portugal.
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