Left image: 404 Branding, Right image: Co-founders (left to right) Renan Monjon, Rafael Caldeira, Saulo Monjon

Their debut project, The Cruise Heist, is a masterclass in creative risk-taking. Tackling a Netflix campaign when the company was less than three weeks old, with just five people on the team, is the kind of audacity that defines 404. Co-founder Rafael Caldeira put it perfectly: “Our name ‘404’ celebrates the idea that mistakes and risk-taking are essential parts of the creative process.”

And it’s not just a nervy concept—they’ve proven it works. In its first year, 404’s design-first approach and lean, two-department structure have delivered results that rival even the most established agencies. From partnerships with global heavyweights like Google and Natura to snagging awards at Cannes Lions, Effies, and El Ojo de Iberoamérica, 404 is shaking up the industry. They fully embrace their tongue-in-cheek, “error-prone” ethos by leaning into the spirit of a 404 error — playfully owning the fact that they don’t even have a website (yet!?) to showcase their award-winning work. You can, however, find them on LinkedIn and Instagram.

What stands out about 404 isn’t just the awards or the high-profile clients. It’s their philosophy: innovation thrives in uncertainty. In a world increasingly dominated by AI, the team champions the power of human creativity and thoughtful design. By blending cutting-edge tech with a distinctly Brazilian flair for bold ideas, they’re redefining how creative problems are solved—not just in Brazil, but anywhere.

As they enter year two, 404 Design & Innovation is on a mission to grow even bigger. Their rapid rise is a testament to the idea that with the right mix of creativity, collaboration, and courage, even the newest player can make waves in a competitive industry. Keep an eye on this agency. PRINT is excited to see what’s in store for 404’s next chapter!

The post 404 Design & Innovation Celebrates a Year of Bold Moves and Big Wins appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Welcome to the DesignThinkers Podcast! Join host and RGD President Nicola Hamilton as she digs into the archives of the DesignThinkers conference, reconnecting with past speakers about their talks and ideas that have shaped Canada’s largest graphic design conference. Follow the RGD on Instagram @rgdcanada or visit them at rgd.ca. Purchase tickets to the upcoming DesignThinkers conference at designthinkers.com.

The post DesignThinkers Podcast: Michael Johnson appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The New Look of Money

Remember when financial brands looked like, well, financial brands? They evoked trust and solemnity in shades of blue, with clean layouts and sophisticated type conveying decades (centuries-even) of dependability. Chime and Klarna are rewriting the rulebook, building sleek, mobile-first apps that feel more like social media platforms than bank branches. Chime uses inviting, saturated colors and uncluttered visuals, making money management feel intuitive and, dare I say, friendly. Klarna has also nailed the balance of simplicity and style but with a hint of playfulness. It’s as if these brands are saying, “Money doesn’t have to be a chore,” which resonates deeply with a generation empowered by quick, user-centric digital experiences.

Chime brand refresh by jkr.

Radical Transparency

Klarna stands out here with its “Pay Later” options, which are communicated upfront and without fuss. It’s all about empowering the user with knowledge and then trusting them to make informed decisions. On the crypto side, transparency is even more crucial given the complexity and volatility of the market. The best crypto brands don’t just list risks; they break down what those risks mean in a practical way, bridging the gap between excitement and informed caution. It’s refreshing to see brands lean into candor, and young consumers are responding with trust.

Klarna brand by their in-house team.

Personalized and Empowering Tools

For many young people, managing finances still feels intimidating. Enter brands like Check My File, which offers simple, comprehensive views of credit standing across multiple agencies. The service is not just about delivering numbers; Check My File offers insights, making credit monitoring feel like a useful, even empowering habit. Personalization isn’t just about flashy algorithms; it’s about creating tools that users actually find helpful and that build loyalty in an authentic way. For younger audiences, this type of personalization makes finances feel less abstract and more like something they can control.

Check My File brand by Ragged Edge.

Creating Community and Social Connection

It’s no secret that social media plays a major role in how young people make financial decisions, and these brands are tapping into that big time. Klarna and 1inch are turning financial management into a shared experience. Klarna, for instance, collaborates with influencers and uses a social commerce approach, embedding itself into the lifestyle and aesthetic young people are drawn to. Meanwhile, 1inch builds communities for shared learning, making finance feel inclusive rather than exclusive. These new brands are not just selling services; they’re creating spaces where people feel a sense of belonging (and dare we say, fun!), even when dealing with something as traditionally daunting as personal finance.

1inch campaign by Talent in collaboration with the Bruce Lee family

These fresh brand aesthetics and marketing strategies signal that financial companies are finally catching on to what young audiences have long wanted: accessibility, straight talk, personalization, and community. By embracing the values of younger audiences, financial brands can become more like guides than institutions. And as they continue to evolve, it’ll be exciting to watch just how far this new wave of finance brands can take us.

The post From Intimidating to Empowering: Financial Brands for the Next Generation appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Albert Einstein

To move our creative practices forward, we must first look to the past, and to do this, we should wrap up the end of the year by analyzing our business holistically. This critical yet often overlooked end-of-year milestone is necessary to develop achievable yet aspirational plans and goals for the new year. It’s an opportunity to review and celebrate your team’s accomplishments as well as discuss, address, and learn from challenges endured and opportunities left untapped. Let’s dive into these!

Organizational Opportunities

State of the Company

Delivering a year-end “state of the company” presentation to your entire team (or, if you’re a solopreneur, to an accountability partner) is one of the best ways to celebrate your successes and analyze the challenges and opportunities going into the new year. In this presentation, you’ll evaluate and highlight key milestones, metrics, actions, and strategies related to all areas of your business, from new business and marketing to financial to organizational and operational areas such as:

• Evaluation of key financial metrics (e.g., gross revenue, company profit, and average project-level profit)
  • Depending on your comfort level regarding transparency (more on this below), you can showcase this through actual dollar amounts or as a percentage change

• Percentage of prospective projects/clients won and lost and what you plan to stop, start, and continue to improve your win/loss rate (e.g., changes and improvements to your business development process, capability deck, proposals)
• New business goals and/or key performance indicators (KPIs) that you measure and track throughout the year (e.g., number of projects completed, outbound business development, client outreach, income earned, and profitability by industry and service)
• Effectiveness of your marketing initiatives (e.g., social media campaigns/posts, email blasts, website metrics, speaking opportunities, thought leadership)
• Recognizing your team’s accomplishments, growth, and any changes, e.g.,
  • Welcoming new hires 
  • As applicable, addressing any critical organizational structure changes that occurred during the year (e.g., new roles/positions created, key team member leaving, layoffs)
  • Recognizing big achievements—personal and professional (e.g., how/what each team member contributed to the company)
  • If you have “values,” how did your team (or each person) contribute to these, and/or how did the company do overall against these values
• Fun facts and tidbits (e.g., number of hours worked, number of Slack messages sent, positive feedback/emails from clients, etc.)
• Introduction to new changes, strategies, and goals for the new year related to all areas of your business (e.g., revenue, new business, organizational structure, etc.)

How much information is too much information?

We at Casa Davka believe in strategic transparency in which you share just the right amount of critical data and information with your team. The more informed your team is, the more they understand your firm’s vision and the context from which business decisions are made. Your employees don’t want to feel the pressures of running a business (e.g., financial worries), but they do want insight and open communications into the reasoning behind certain critical decisions (e.g., new business choices, organizational changes, hiring needs, salary bands). More on this in our previous article, “The New Creative Team”! We also believe we have a duty to our industry to educate the next generation of creatives about the behind-the-scenes of running a creative firm, the highs, the lows, and everything in between. 

Here’s what your peers are doing during these presentations:

“We set a goal years ago to move towards more robust projects that fit best with our process while simultaneously scaling down the sheer number of clients we could take on at any given time. Sharing how we made good on that goal, depicted in infographics that compared workloads across several years while still meeting revenue goals, really impressed upon the team that we were actually walking the talk. 

These team get-togethers are always combined with great meals, often a service project for the team, and some downtime for everyone to simply enjoy each other’s company. Candle-making, pottery & cooking classes, museum tours — things that are creative-leaning (and having nothing to do with our work product) have been big hits.” – Allyson Lack, Founder & Creative Director at Principle

“We focus on all of the great work that we accomplished — including data and stats reflecting the monumental effort of everyone’s contributions and project highlights showcasing the impact of everyone’s work.” – Zeke Shore, Founding Partner & Head of Product at Type/Code

“We showcase team milestones and achievements, along with firm achievements of the previous year. We also discuss what went well and perhaps what didn’t and why. We also review how the firm did financially compared to previous years (percentages, not actual numbers). During this meeting, we look at our Vision for the year and discuss where we are headed and what small quarterly steps we need to take to get there.” – Brandie Knox, Principal & Creative Director at Knox Design Strategy

Employee Check-ins

Year-end check-ins with employees are a great way to reflect on the past year, plan for the next, and strengthen trust while staying in touch with your team’s overall morale and culture. That said, in lieu of the standard end-of-the-year performance reviews, we recommend conducting shorter 1:1 check-ins with each team member to discuss and explore:

• Their thoughts and questions on your State of Company presentation 
• What and/or how they would like to contribute to your firm’s growth plans and changes in the year ahead
• How they see the year ahead regarding their growth/status within the firm, any applicable personal updates, etc.

We recommend doing these end-of-year 1:1 check-ins instead of end-of-year performance reviews (which we recommend should be done on the anniversary of each person’s hire date, ideally staggered throughout the year) as it:

• Is less draining on you as the firm principal not to have to do all performance reviews at the same time
• Allows for the cost of salary increases to be amortized across the year
• Provides the freedom for organizational changes (i.e., promotions) to happen more organically throughout the year.

Alternatively, you can still conduct end-of-year performance reviews but without salary raises. By doing it this way, you can review and establish performance improvement goals for the upcoming year so that by the anniversary of their hire date, you can make more informed decisions about salary increases or promotions based on how they performed against these goals.

Relatedly, we don’t recommend end-of-year bonuses because they create a sense of entitlement among employees, making them feel expected rather than incentivized. Instead, you should have a budget for spot mini-bonuses, which you can distribute to each employee sporadically throughout the year as a surprise to unexpectedly reward those who did something special or who went above and beyond the call of duty.

We moved from a traditional annual review to a Feedback and Coaching model this year, which means each team member has been meeting with their coach every 6 weeks to address immediate challenges, provide meaningful feedback on performance, share insight on growth paths, and advance individual and organizational goals. So, we do not have one formal conversation at the end of the year since we’ve been working consistently on growth all year long.” – Kelly Jennings & Partner / Director of Client Engagement, J2 and Exit Design

Client Relationship Opportunities

• Conduct Post-mortems: For important strategic and/or bigger relationships that closed out this year, you should meet with your clients to evaluate what went well in your relationship and with the project and discuss and identify areas for improvement, lessons learned, and potential next steps.
  • Post-mortems are also an opportunity to collect any success metrics (quantifiable data) that demonstrate if/how the project aligned with and met the client’s business goals. Testimonials are meaningless; the data and results matter when demonstrating your value to prospects and current clients. How do you help your clients “move the needle”? Any metrics gathered should be showcased prominently in case studies, capability decks, etc.
• Send Client Feedback/Satisfaction Surveys: For the smaller, less strategic relationships, you can ask for their feedback on services provided and projects completed during the year through a simple, short survey. You can then use the data and learnings from the post-mortems and surveys to improve process and service offerings. 
• Advise on Marketing Plans: During the fourth quarter, clients often evaluate their marketing spend from the last year and develop budgets for the upcoming year. This is, therefore, an ideal time to reconnect and schedule meetings with select clients or even conduct an end-of-year “strategy summit” where you can explore what’s next for them and how they can best move forward in leveraging their end-of-year unspent marketing dollars and/or how best to allocate their marketing budget in the new year. Use these moments to be advisory and build trust with your client, not to “upsell” them or “win” business. These discussions are not “business development” or “selling” but relationship building. You should authentically show that you care about their success and future growth. 
• Review Contracts and Renewals: Assess which client contracts/retainers are up for renewal and begin discussions for the next year. Offer discounts for early renewals, as appropriate.

“We have a long-time client we’ve partnered with for over a decade, and a key aspect of staying in sync with their future growth and overall goals is ensuring our team can meet those creative pursuits and needs well ahead of the project being anywhere close to beginning or receiving a brief. Our tradition is to meet over a meal in Q4 every year to understand what will happen in the following year and 2+ years out, ensuring we’re prepared to hold bandwidth and have the right talent in place. It helps us be less reactive to their larger-scale projects that require a dedicated team on our end.” – Allyson Lack, Founder & Creative Director at Principle

• Promote Retainer Offering: Review ongoing client relationships that provided you with consistent work throughout the year and consider “upselling” a retainer for the next year.

Financial and Operational Opportunities

The year-end is also the ideal time to close out, clean up, and evaluate your financials and assess key operational areas:

• Analyze Financial Performance: Do a deep dive review of revenue, profits, expenses, and cash flow with your bookkeeper (some of this information will have gone into your State of the Company presentation), and compare these numbers with forecasts set the year prior, and set new financial targets for the next year.

“We do a company performance evaluation with leadership, digging into financial performance relative to projections, project-level P&L, team-member utilization, and setting performance goals for the next year.” – Zeke Shore, Founding Partner & Head of Product at Type/Code

• Close Outstanding Invoices: Ensure all outstanding client payments are received and clear pending bills.
• Prepare Taxes: Start to prepare and gather all necessary tax documentation. Work with your bookkeeper and accountant to clean up any outstanding issues and begin the tax preparation process so that, in the new year, you have all your ducks in a row and can file taxes accurately and on time.
• Review Your Processes & Tools: Evaluate your firm’s workflow strategies and systems from the tools you use for task management, time tracking, schedule, and budget development/tracking, etc., to meeting strategies (looking at quantity, efficiency, etc.) to project/client management processes, identifying inefficiencies, bottlenecks, etc. so you can make improvements going into the new year.

Marketing and New Business Opportunities

While you should be doing business development and marketing throughout the year, the end of the year is an ideal time to tie up some loose ends and help prepare you for the year ahead:

• Develop Case Studies: Based on the post-mortems with your clients, you can develop new case studies and update existing ones with new success metrics.
• Send Holiday Gifts… Not: This is one thing we know creatives love to do: develop or buy some sort of swag or gift to send to clients, but our POV on holiday gifts/campaigns is don’t do them! Often, these gifts get lost in the rush of the holidays, have little impact on nurturing a client relationship, and are more than likely time-consuming and expensive to produce or purchase. Building and maintaining one-to-one relationships with clients is a far better use of your time (and far less expensive).
  • Alternatively, you can send clients a handwritten thank you note or personal email to express appreciation. You can even send a small, inexpensive gift to select clients, but make sure these gifts are unique for each client to show that you are thoughtful and know something about them that personally or professionally resonates with them (e.g., a spa gift card for a new parent, a fancy dinner for a foodie, a new set of pickleballs for the pickleball obsessed).

“I sent an end-of-year letter to past clients, former colleagues, friends, and family—people who already knew me pretty well—and called it a Year In Reflection and shared an honest look-back on wins and work. It took me an entire month to send my letters as I added personalized touches to many of them, but wow, what a touching response. I think these letters—which didn’t cost anything—were more successful than gifts or holiday cards because it felt personal and from the heart.” – Saundra Marcel, Designer & Brand Author at Design Minded

“We’ve moved away from traditional “client gifts,” but recognize select clients with a donation to a charity or a themed treat. We focus on celebrating client or project milestones as they happen with shared meals throughout the year.” – Kelly Jennings & Partner / Director of Client Engagement, J2 and Exit Design

• Plan Your Marketing Campaigns for Next Year: Evaluate how marketing efforts (e.g., social media campaigns/posts, email blasts, client outreach, speaking opportunities, thought leadership) from this past year performed and start building a content calendar for the coming year based on these learnings.
• Develop Business Development Goals and Strategies: Based on historical data and market conditions, forecast next year’s new business/sales (ideally by industry and project type) and develop and plan relationship-building/ and business development strategies and goals to meet or exceed those targets.

And that’s a Wrap!

We know this is a lot of work and takes time, but these actions are all incredibly valuable and critical to helping you holistically evaluate and strategically evolve your business year after year. 

These end-of-year wrap-up actions also provide the necessary context to begin envisioning, planning, and executing against your goals for the new year (keep an eye out for our next article on New Year’s resolutions in January!). 

This process is also a very rewarding experience as you can look deeply and holistically at your business from all angles, identify and celebrate your successes, big and small, and learn from your challenges.

Emily Cohen and Hunter Vargas are business partners and consultants at Casa Davka who offer customized business solutions to creative firms so they are able to refine, evolve, and elevate their strategies and practices. Emily has been in the business for over 30+ years, partnered with 500+ leading creative firms, and is a frequently requested main-stage speaker. Hunter is an experienced marketer, project manager, client partner, and business development manager. They also happen to be a mother/daughter pair, so they work together seamlessly, complementing (and challenging) each other in many ways.

The post The Business of Creativity: End-of-Year Wrap-Up appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. The book itself felt like a magical artifact, something special. For starters, it was longer. It was a grander story than the other books I was reading then, with bigger words, made-up languages, poetry, and songs. Reading it made me feel older in a way that made me proud, but it was still approachable enough to be exciting and digestible as a kid. I remember reading it back then and thinking, “Someday, I’m going to read this to my kids.” Which was a thought I didn’t have about nearly anything else at that age.

Well, about three decades and four kids later (baby Luka was born this past August!), I’m doing it; I’m reading The Hobbit to my kids. And to my delight, they love it. Almost every night as we wrap up family dinner, my daughter Rafi (our oldest) will say, “I can’t wait to read The Hobbit tonight!” I usually sit and read them about half a chapter per night, and then Rafi grabs the book and reads ahead (but she’s fine with me re-reading the same parts the next night for her brothers’ benefit). It’s family time together, and they’re also fully invested in the epic story of Bilbo Baggins and his adventures in Middle Earth.

Story is such a huge part of the human experience. Much like a beautiful building is the output of good architecture, a useful product is the output of good industrial design, and a compelling advertisement is the output of good graphic design: stories are the primary output of good business design.

The Power of Storytelling

Whether you’re a kid or an adult, stories are woven into almost every aspect of our lives — appearing in diverse forms and contexts. Perhaps the most prominent examples are the books, movies, shows, and video games we watch, listen to, and play — each with a structured story designed to captivate us. Over fifty-five million people watched the second season of The Rings of Power, a new show diving into Tolkien’s Middle Earth history, complete with elves, wizards, and yes, hobbits — and with themes like good versus evil (of course), hope and unity against darkness, identity and heritage, sacrifice and leadership, and more.

Journalism is stories. The word “news” is short for “new stories.” The media frequently uses storytelling to report on events, creating a narrative around facts to make information more relatable and easier to understand. As TV news entered the fray and had to compete with shows like The Rings of Power for viewership, news became increasingly more narratively compelling.

Then there’s social media — not only are we telling our own stories through our posts, but there’s a format called “Stories,” video snapshots of our lives in narrative form. Ads are stories. Political campaigns are stories about the candidates and the future they hope to create. Most religions are built on narratives — stories from sacred texts, myths, and parables that convey moral lessons, cultural values, and spiritual guidance. Music is stories — often, songs are structured narratively; think: Bob Dylan and Taylor Swift. And if the song isn’t a story, there’s always a story behind the music.

A story is a structured collection of information that conveys events, emotions, characters, and lessons, ultimately providing meaning. In The Science of Storytelling, author Will Storr shares research that suggests language evolved principally to connect with each other and share social information, also known as gossip, amongst Stone Age tribes. “We’d tell tales about the moral rights and wrongs of other people, punish the bad behavior, reward the good, and thereby keep everyone cooperating and the tribe in check.” In the book, he refers to the psychologist Professor Roy Baumeister’s writing: ‘Life is change that yearns for stability.’ Storr says, “Story is a form of play that allows us to feel we’ve lost control without actually placing us in danger.”

Similarly, in Wired for Story, author Lisa Cron explores how stories engage our brains at a biological level. She argues that the brain is “wired” to pay attention to stories because they help us understand how to survive and thrive in the world. Cron posits that stories evolved to help us practice for real life. They provide a mental simulation that helps us understand others, navigate social situations, and make decisions.

I love The Hobbit because Bilbo isn’t some sort of superhero; in fact, he’s the opposite, and often complains and thinks about how much he’d rather be at home eating in front of the fireplace than be on an adventure — he complains, but he sticks with it — he’s a hobbit, but he’s us, he’s human. I could simply tell my kids to be brave when they’re scared. Or I can read them The Hobbit and they can think about Bilbo Baggins and reflect on how they’d react if a colony of giant spiders had 12 of their friends tied up in webs, and it was up to them to save them. By reading my kids The Hobbit, I’m helping them understand courage, the power of friendship and collaboration, resilience in the face of adversity, and the importance of staying true to yourself.

Story Structure

Cron writes, “We think in story, which means we instinctively look for meaning in everything that happens to us.” At its core, a story has several essential elements that make it compelling and meaningful: a character (or characters), often with a specific desire or goal, encounters a conflict or obstacle and undergoes a journey that leads to a resolution or transformation. The journey is the narrative arc that keeps the audience engaged — through a build-up and release — and generates emotional responses, insights, and empathy.

The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy once said, “All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.” If you think about it, it is one type of story: when a person leaves home on a journey, they become a stranger somewhere else. And when a stranger comes to town, by definition, they’ve left home and traveled to the new town. Over time, natural story archetypes like Tolstoy’s evolved and became particularly powerful at driving meaning, and you can use them all in business design to great effect.

In The Hero’s Journey story archetype, a character (the hero) sets out on a journey to achieve a specific goal; they face trials and challenges, receive help, and undergo a transformation, returning home changed. Think Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, Neo in The Matrix, and Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games.

Author Donald Miller pulls out an intriguing element of The Hero’s Journey as it relates to business in his book Building a StoryBrand. He writes, “Your customer should be the hero of the story, not your brand.” He goes on to illuminate how many of our favorite stories feature a guide and — once you realize this — you see it in everything. Luke has Obi-Wan Kenobi, Neo has Morpheus, Katniss has Shamus, Harry has Hagrid, Dorthy has Glinda, Frodo has Gandalf, and on and on and on. Miller urges business leaders to make their brand “the guide” for the customer in their own story, helping them reach their personal goals.

Similarly, there’s The Quest story archetype, which focuses on collective objectives rather than one hero’s personal growth or transformation. In this archetype, the companions go on a journey to acquire something of great value, encountering many obstacles along the way. Examples of The Quest are plentiful, including The Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, and The Wizard of Oz.

More archetypes: Rags-to-Riches is a classic — and useful in business because it often has a character rising from humble beginnings, overcoming adversity, and achieving success, wealth, or greatness (Cinderella, Harry Potter, Pretty Woman). Tragedy: the protagonist’s actions lead to negative outcomes, often because of a fatal flaw — these stories make great cautionary tales, think Macbeth or Requiem for a Dream. Conversely, the Comedy archetype centered around misunderstandings, mistaken identities, or social mishaps — think The Hangover, Bridge Jones’s Diary, etc.

Another classic is The Underdog archetype: the main character, who is weaker or disadvantaged, faces a powerful adversary or systemic challenge; despite the odds, they triumph due to resilience, cleverness, or sheer determination. There are so many to choose from: Rocky, Rudy, Karate Kid. There’s the Forbidden Love type — the characters fall in love, but external forces forbid their relationship, and the pair struggle against the constraints keeping them apart: Romeo and Juliet, Titanic, The Notebook.

There’s the Coming-of-Age Story: Stand by Me, Boyhood, and Lady Bird. Let’s not forget Mysteries, where the protagonist tries to solve a puzzle, uncover a secret, or discover the truth — the story follows them as they piece together clues, dodge red herrings, and solve the case.

Lastly (of the ones I’ll mention here — there are more), my absolute favorite: The Heist. A group of diverse individuals come together to execute a daring plan, often involving stealing something (but not always). Each member of the group typically brings a unique skill, and there are twists, setbacks, and betrayals along the way. Examples: Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job, and Inception.

These archetypes provide structures that storytellers adapt and innovate to create countless unique narratives across different genres and mediums. Each typology captures a different facet of human experience and, therefore, can be leveraged very effectively in business design: by understanding and framing the output of our work as stories, we can communicate effectively, drive change, and inspire both employees and customers.

Six Key Business Stories

Business designers create strategies, processes, services, and more, but at the heart of it all, every project, initiative, or transformation within a business starts as a story. In business design, stories come in various forms, each serving a different purpose. Some are about setting a direction, aligning people with a common vision, or defining how a company operates. Others are about challenges — identifying obstacles that need to be overcome, showing how solutions are reached, and highlighting the impact of those solutions on people’s lives.

Six key business stories, three Alignment Stories, and three Journey Stories cut across internal and external engagement and connect and shape.

First, Alignment Stories help individuals within an organization understand and rally around a shared purpose and objectives. They inspire and clarify the organization’s direction and operations and show how people can grow and succeed together.

1. Vision/Strategy Stories are narratives about the future state of the company, a product, or service that the company is working towards. They help people understand why a particular course of action is important and where they fit in it and inspire them to contribute toward that shared vision. A good example: when Satya Nadella took over as CEO of Microsoft, he didn’t just share new sales targets; he shared a new vision for the company that focused on cloud computing and digital transformation. By telling a story of transformation — in this case, he used The Quest story archetype — he emphasized innovation, customer-centricity, and a growth mindset to help rally the entire company around this new strategic direction.

2. Coaching Stories are narratives used to mentor, advise, and inspire team members or stakeholders. They often involve examples of personal growth, lessons learned, and overcoming challenges. I’ll share an example from my career as a people leader: recently, a colleague and I identified that they weren’t bringing their expert opinions into strategic conversations. They were holding back and going along with what the rest of the team said. I could have told them, “Insert yourself more.” Instead, I told a Coming-of-Age story; it went something like this:

When I was in design school, I had a professor, Stan — he’d go desk to desk as we were working on our design projects. When he got to my desk, I showed him what I was working on, and he’d nod and say, Sam, this is great, but you should do x,y,z (paraphrasing here) to improve it. That day and night, I’d do everything he said — to the letter — excited to show him my progress. The next day, he’d look at what I’d done and say, no, no, do this, this, and this, which I’d then do. This repeated a few times over the course of the week until finally, I somewhat angrily said, “I’ve done everything you’ve said to do, and you never like it! Here’s what I think: it should be like this! I then shared the direction I believe best solved the problem. Stan stepped back and smiled, and walked away, achieving his goal. The moral of the story: it’s our job to have a point of view and the courage to share it.

3. Culture Stories reinforce the shared values, traditions, and behaviors that define an organization’s culture — and they help set expectations for how people interact and approach work within the collective group. One of my absolute favorites comes from my employer, Edward Jones. Ted Jones, the son of company founder Edward Jones Sr., is lauded at the company for urging (some stories say ‘forcing’) his father to transform the wealth management firm from a family business to a partnership owned by the employees, where those who “share the work, share the profits.” Transforming the firm into a partnership meant Ted was leaving the chance behind of becoming a multi-billionaire if he had simply sold it to the highest bidder. As the story goes:

When Ted, then retired, was asked by a reporter why he never sold out and became as rich as say, his friend Sam Walton, Ted replied: “I am the richest man in America. I have a wife who loves me in spite of my faults. I have four dogs. Two love only me. One loves everybody. One loves no one but is still very loyal. I enjoy my business. I love my farm and my home. I have a few close friends, and money has never been my god.”

That quote is emblazoned on plaques, in documents, and in the minds of everyone who works at Edward Jones. Here you have a Rags-to-Riches story of a family starting a company working “to bring wealth management from Wall Street to Main Street” as a partnership — Ted’s reply goes further in communicating a rags-to-humble riches story that sets the tone for everyone at the firm — reinforcing how we all keep a sense of humility and gratitude for what we have, as we work together to grow prosperity for all.

Journey Stories focus on defining challenges, navigating the path and process to find solutions, and showcasing the impact of those solutions. These stories communicate the effort, iteration, and creativity involved in addressing problems or activating opportunities. Done well, they create connections and credibility inside and outside your business.

4. Challenge Stories focus on a specific problem that needs solving — helping everyone understand the core issue and why it’s important — these stories set the stage for action. Challenge stories are useful and nearly ubiquitous in the design process as we seek to identify and solve for user needs. A business challenge (stated in a very non-story way) might be something like this: Not enough people are using our healthcare app. As designers, we dig in, do user research, and discover that users are frustrated with the appointment scheduling feature — we can frame the challenge as a design challenge, perhaps for a statement of work: Our users (our main characters in this case) tell us they struggle to schedule appointments easily, leading to missed care opportunities and frustration. We must redesign the appointment flow to make it simple, intuitive, and efficient. The challenge is to reduce the number of steps and ensure users have a smooth, reliable experience booking appointments and ultimately meet their healthcare needs. In a similar fashion, we can frame this as a typical UX design user story, a story from the user’s point of view that can drive our design work: Simplify Appointment Scheduling: As a healthcare app user, I want to easily schedule a medical appointment without confusion, so that I can get the care I need without stress or missed bookings.

This is an excellent example of The Hero’s Journey because, as Donald Miller shares in Becoming a Storybrand, our users/customers are the heroes. Challenge Stories are the calls to adventure that inspire the hero’s journey and lead to our next business story type.

5. Journey to Solution Stories take the audience through the process of how a problem was addressed, showing the iterations, teamwork, and resilience involved. These stories are about walking the path, overcoming the challenges, and learning lessons along the way. Journey to Solution stories are great for design projects — I frame pretty much every project I lead as a quest that includes my core team and the broader team of subject matter experts — we all work together to travel from The Shire to The Lonely Mountain, I mean… from the challenge to the solution.

These stories are perfect for founding/origin tales — in fact, I wrote one; my book Adventures in Disruption was written as a Journey to Solution story about starting a new kind of design museum. I wrote the story as sort of a Heist, with various characters and our different skill sets: me with project management and business strategy, Derek with design and sales, Steve with tech and web development, Jenna with marketing and event production, and more. We came together to activate the opportunity and achieve our objective.

6. Solution and Impact Stories describe the solution and its tangible impact on customers and stakeholders. Here, you often see customer testimonials and real-world examples — sometimes even with data! — of the benefits experienced by interacting with your business, products, or services. Solution and Impact Stories are great for sales because you show what you’ve done, build credibility, and reinforce your value. Here’s a real example from productivity app Notion:

Toyota uses Notion to drive more efficient workflows with collaboration that comes standard. *Toyota’s Frontier Research Center is at the forefront of the future for the largest brand in one of the world’s largest industries. Their team is responsible for not only conducting a wide range of research but also sharing findings with the world. Since switching to Notion to consolidate and centrally manage all of this work, they’re more efficient and productive than ever before.

For the researchers at Toyota, sharing findings with the public is just as important as conducting the research itself. To do this, the research center promotes their work on social media for the world to engage with. But doing so requires a rigorous approval process to ensure accuracy and maintain the integrity of the Toyota brand. Before switching to Notion, this process was a tedious back-and-forth exchange of messages between various teams that was painfully inefficient.

With Notion, every post gets drafted and sent for approval in an easy-to-follow workflow that ends with a single click of the “approve” button that reduced approval timelines by 3x. Instead of the back and forth messages, the team can quickly check statuses and receive automated notifications of changes and updates.

“Not only do our streamlined workflows in Notion save us time, they also make it easier to stay up to date on task details and progress. This means our social media posts are more accurate, and we can publish them faster than before.” — Taku Wakasugi, Toyota Frontier Research Center

Here, we have a sort of Rags to Riches story. The protagonists are the researchers at Toyota. The “rags” are those pesky inefficient workflows, and the “riches” are their new streamlined processes—all possible because of the significant value provided by Notion.

Three Alignment and three Journey stories. These six types of business stories serve different but complementary purposes — use them together and build off each type. A Rags to Riches Journey to Solution story might bolster your culture. A Vision/Strategy Quest Story is a great way to tee up your ultimate triumph, your epic Solution, and your Impact Story.

How to Craft Business Stories

The organizational psychologist and author Adam Grant recently wrote: “The hallmark of expertise is no longer how much you know. It’s how well you synthesize.” As we explored above, the ultimate synthesis is storytelling. Writing compelling stories requires structure, emotional resonance, and relevance to your audience. To tell good stories, we start there:

1. Understand your audience and purpose: In The Science of Storytelling, Will Storr emphasizes that the best stories are all about change. Conflict drives change through tension and obstacles that help us reflect on the challenges we face ourselves. Determine what you want to achieve with your story, whether to inspire, educate, influence, or align — ask yourself what you want to change — then tailor your story to your audience’s interests, challenges, and needs.
2. Focus on specific characters and details: Every story needs a main character. The character could be a customer, employee, or the leadership team — choose someone relatable. In some instances, like Vision/Strategy stories, the whole company may collectively be the main character.
3. Incorporate emotional resonance: Connect on an emotional level by conveying how characters feel at key points in the story. And always connect to a deeper purpose. For example, a story about solving a customer problem should also convey why that solution was meaningful for the people involved and the audience listening.
4. Keep it simple and authentic: Avoid overly technical jargon or unnecessary complexity. Simple language makes it easier for your audience to understand and connect. As in all things, authenticity in your stories fosters trust and credibility.
5. Connect to broader themes: Tie your story back to your company’s core values or vision to help reinforce strategic priorities and make the story more impactful. Above all else, make sure your audience leaves knowing the main point.

Business Design Example

Good business design transforms noise into knowledge and, ultimately, to story. Here’s an example: Let’s say we’re a business designer for a large, national real estate firm focused on empowering agents to support home buyers and sellers, and our executive leaders are concerned. Our sales are plateauing, even down in some areas of the country. There is a flood of new opportunities and constraints acting on our business — where should we focus our efforts? What should we invest in? How should we better support our agents to make an impact and ultimately grow our business?

We begin by understanding the unstructured landscape — the Noise — and gradually shape it into a cohesive Story that aligns everyone toward the future of our real estate, all by design.

1. Learn: Making Sense of the Noise We start by gathering from the Noise to find Data: researching market signals and interviewing agents and clients. Agents have expressed challenges with digital engagement, increased competition from tech-driven competitors, and shifting client expectations. We categorize these insights to identify recurring themes. As we learn and identify patterns, we transform Data into Information; for example, we see a growing demand for digital tools and personalized customer interactions. A great way to synthesize user data is by creating personas, representations of our user groups — in the context of our story, personas are our characters (agents, clients, and colleagues). Let’s create a persona named Tracy — a realtor on our team with 15 years of experience.
2. Define: Turning Information into Clear Focus Areas We then synthesize this information further by analyzing what the patterns mean. Agents like Tracy need support to become more tech-savvy, and clients expect a seamless, tech-driven experience. We clearly define our core user problem (an excellent start to our story): Our agents need to be empowered with modern tools, skills, and a client-centric approach to regain market share and improve sales performance. This step turns the information into Knowledge by giving it context and clarity — helping us pinpoint areas where we need to act. The focus areas or need statements might be something like:
   • Investing in technology to enhance client experiences.
   • Upskilling agents in digital tools and personalized services.
   • Building community and support systems for agents to adapt to future challenges.
3. Ideate, Prototype, & Test with Story As needed, we can share drafts of our story for feedback and refinement. At this point, with our new knowledge and defined focus areas, we can concurrently ideate/prototype/test solutions and begin developing our story. Let’s say we ideate, prototype, and test a few initiatives — each idea represents an element of the broader narrative we’re building:
   • Pilot Programs for Digital Tools: We roll out virtual tour technology to a small group of agents to see how effectively it enhances client interactions.
   • Training Curriculum: Develop a foundational training program on digital engagement tools and test it with a subset of agents to refine the content and delivery.
   • Agent Community Forum: Create a virtual space for agents to share challenges and successes, fostering collaboration.

4. Refining the Final Story From the prototypes and testing, we learned that agents feel more confident and empowered when they have access to the right technology and training. Based on this feedback, we refine our story to ensure that it aligns with agents’ needs and customers’ expectations. We’re ready to write and deliver our story.

The Story: Tracy’s Evolution — Tracy is a realtor with over 15 years of experience. She’s seen the market change — sometimes dramatically. From the rollercoaster of the housing crisis to the surge in demand during the pandemic, Tracy helped families find their homes, navigating unpredictable shifts in the market. But now, as technology evolves and client expectations change, she knows that the future of the real estate industry will look very different from the past.

Recently, Tracy noticed that more of her clients expected an almost digital-first approach — asking for virtual tours, wanting deep data insights, and using online platforms to streamline their buying process. She started to see potential clients choosing tech-enabled competitors over traditional agents. Tracy understood that she needed to adapt to what the next 15 years might bring: smart technology integration, personalized client service through data insights, and deepened relationships in a hybrid digital world.

Tracy embarked on a journey to transform her approach to real estate. She began with professional development — taking courses on digital marketing, virtual property tours, and data analytics in real estate. She adopted new technology that allowed her to create virtual home tours, leveraging 3D scanning to give buyers an immersive experience without ever stepping foot in the property. She utilized new data-driven platforms to provide her clients with neighborhood analytics that offered insights into future growth potential, school ratings, and even sustainability features that mattered to a new generation of buyers.

Tracy also focused on personal branding, creating engaging online content that spoke directly to her clients’ needs. She shared videos about trends in home sustainability, insider tips for new buyers, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of her day-to-day work as a realtor adapting to a tech-driven world. She built trust with her audience and a pipeline of new clients by showing her willingness to evolve.

This journey helped Tracy grow her business and future-proof her career. She began attracting a tech-savvy clientele that valued her experience and new capabilities. Her clients appreciated the seamlessness of their buying experience, from virtual walkthroughs to data-backed decisions. Tracy also found that integrating technology allowed her to spend more quality time building relationships rather than managing manual processes, elevating her service to a new level.

Tracy’s story is one of evolution. She leverages technology not as a replacement for the human element but as an enhancer that allows her to do what she does best: helping people find a place to call home.

We are building the real estate firm of the future — one that combines the expertise of seasoned agents like Tracy with cutting-edge technology to deliver unmatched service. Tracy has seen the industry evolve dramatically. She knows that to thrive in the next decade, she must embrace change and adopt new tools to engage clients digitally and provide personalized, data-driven experiences. We are committed to empowering agents with the tools, training, and support they need to adapt and succeed. Together, we will create a seamless, personalized real estate experience that makes finding and selling a home as efficient and rewarding as possible.

How’d we do?

Our audience: executive leaders who need a strategic vision for what to do and where to invest. Check.

Specific characters and details: Tracy is a traditional realtor with 15 years of experience, but looking to evolve for the next decade and beyond. Check.

Emotional resonance: “the rollercoaster of the housing crisis,” “unpredictable shifts,” Tracy is worried about the future, which is a very human thing to be worried about; we can relate.

Keep it simple: we paint a simple picture of how and why Tracy needs to evolve and how we can support her — with three initiative ideas prototyped and tested.

Connect to broader themes: the main strategic theme: invest in our evolution as a company to support agents like Tracy. Check.

Stories Make Sense

Stories are central to how we make sense of the world, relate to one another, and inspire action. When used effectively, storytelling can align teams around a shared vision, build resilience through coaching, reinforce culture, and guide customers through challenges to solutions. For business designers, mastering storytelling allows us to synthesize meaningful narratives that resonate across teams and stakeholders. It helps us frame challenges, celebrate successes, and ensure that the human element always remains at the core of what we do.

I mentioned reading The Hobbit to my kids — well, now we’re taking the next step; my daughter Rafi and I are writing our own story: Rafi and the Lost Kingdom. Rafi, like most (all?) kids, is working hard to understand, feel, and react to her emotions — so in this story, Rafi finds a magic wand that works sort of like a mood ring; it senses her feelings, and various emotions give her certain powers — but if her emotions get the best of her, the wand can shut down, leaving her in tough situations. By writing this story, she’s learning to name her emotions, she’s understanding that her emotions are valid, and she’s seeing self-regulation in action — all through the power of story.

Think about the story you want to tell. Will it be a vision story that sets a direction for the future? A journey story that chronicles how challenges were overcome? Or perhaps a culture narrative that embodies the values you stand for? Whatever story you craft, remember: the power of a well-told story lies in its ability to drive understanding, alignment, and meaningful change.

Sam Aquillano is an entrepreneur, design leader, writer, and founder of Design Museum Everywhere. This post was originally published in Sam’s twice-monthly newsletter for the creative-business-curious, Business Design School. Check out Sam’s book, Adventures in Disruption: How to Start, Survive, and Succeed as a Creative Entrepreneur.

Header image: Maxime Lebrun on Unsplash; article images & graphics courtesy of the author.

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I’m creating no less than seven presentations and workshops and one that captured my attention over the last few days involves pizza.

The workshop is called, “Slice to Pie.” It’s a metaphor for the transition from leading a domain-specific discipline to full enterprise management. In human terms, it’s when you go from being a leader of, say, accounts to becoming President or CEO. (In my case I went from Chief Creative Officer to CEO.)

Essentially, you have your slice. And next thing you know, you’ve got the whole pie.

The workshop I’m leading will go into detail about this transition and how to approach it.

Here are a few things that might help you as you’re pondering trying to make a similar move happen.

Step one, before you get your head around the enterprise, get your mind around understanding finance. If you’re not coming from a finance background learn the basics and learn the terms.

Sure, every finance meeting is essentially the same plot: What’s the money coming in? (Revenue). What’s the money we’re using to run this thing? (Cost). What’s left over? (Profit).

Oh, you can go one step further and calculate the profit as a percentage. (Margin). That’ll show you how efficiently things are going. And trust me, the conversation will go deep and wide into ways to prune costs. But keeping this foundation will always ground you in the root of the conversation.

Best of all, once you know that every day your CFO and her team will be thinking about this (and every month you’ll be reporting it) you can turn your attention to the rest of the pie.

In my workshop, I break down the enterprise into my 3P framework. (Those of you who follow this blog will know this ol’ chestnut). The 3Ps: People, Process, Product.

When you approach the pie through this 3P lens you can really manage and lead.

For example:

People: Listening and motivating.

Process: Focus on how you create and make your ideas and products.

Product: The thing you are producing. How good is it? How are you pricing it? How are you selling it?

Do the first Ps right and it all leads to a fourth P: Profit.

Here’s another thing: Use the 3Ps as an assessment tool. You see, if any one of these elements is misaligned, you’ll have problems. Don’t have the right People? The Process will be irrelevant and the Product will suffer. Have the right People but no Process? You might get lucky on Product but it won’t be sustainable. Product is mediocre? Well, is it the People or the Process? No doubt, it’s all affecting your Profit.

Is this utterly reductive? You bet it is.

Coming into a CEO role as a trained copywriter, I found so many issues and conversations were complicated and loaded with confusing jargon.

I simplified everything.

That’s what I preach. That’s what I teach.

Simplify.

It all comes back to pizza. It’s a few simple ingredients all working together. Maybe that’s why you’re rarely satisfied with just one slice.

Rob Schwartz is the Chair of the TBWA New York Group and an executive coach who channels his creativity, experience and wisdom into helping others get where they want to be. This was originally posted on his Substack, RobSchwartzHelps, where he covers work, life, and creativity.

Header image by Polina Kuzovkova for Unsplash+.

The post Slice to Pie appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Just about every magazine Richard Baker worked for has died. Even one called Life.

Also dead: The Washington Post Magazine, Vibe, Premiere, and Parade. Another, Saveur, also died but has recently been resurrected. And Us Magazine? A mere shadow of its former self.

Sadly, Baker’s career narrative is not that uncommon. (That’s why you’re listening to a podcast called Print Is Dead).

But Richard Baker is a survivor. He’s survived immigrating from Jamaica as a kid. He’s survived the sudden and premature loss of three influential and beloved mentors. And he’s survived a near-fatal medical emergency in the New York subway.

Yet, in the face of all that carnage, Richard Baker just keeps on going. To this day, he’s living the magazine dream—“classic edition”—as a designer at a sturdy newsstand publication (Inc. magazine), in a brick-and-mortar office (7 World Trade Center), working with real people, and making something beautiful with ink and paper.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a podcast about magazines and the people who made (and make) them. Magazines that combined thought-provoking attitudes and values with a distinctive look and feel, and cast a long and powerful shadow on American culture and public discourse. Hear stories and learn lessons from legendary designers, editors, writers, publishers, photographers, illustrators, photo editors, and more—stories and lessons that capture a magical history of innovation and inspiration, and that point the way forward. We’ll go deep into the lives and careers of this astonishingly talented group of creators, and tease out what these giants—past and present—have to teach the next generation of creators.

If you’re in the magazine business—if you’re in any business focused on content creation—this podcast is for you.

This episode is a special collaboration with The Spread and is made possible by PIDLLP sponsors Commercial Type, Mountain Gazette, and Freeport Press.

The team behind Print is Dead (Long Live Print!) also produces The Full Bleed, a podcast about the future of magazines and the magazines of the future.

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“Our focus has always been on understanding people,” said Jay Houston, president of talent solutions for Addison Group’s Finance & Accounting division. “This brand refresh emphasizes what makes us unique while delivering a clear and compelling message to the marketplace.”

With the talent acquisition landscape becoming more competitive, Addison Group’s new digital presence ensures that businesses seeking specialized solutions continue to see Addison as a trusted partner. To bring this vision to life, Addison partnered with VSA Partners, a creative and branding agency, who worked with Dapper and Associates to craft an engaging, people-centric user experience.

As Addison Group continues to grow—with eight brands and 28 offices across the U.S.—this brand refresh is the latest move to showcase what sets them apart: a deep commitment to connecting businesses with the best talent.

Celebrating 25 years of success, Addison Group’s new branding is a testament to its dedication to delivering exceptional talent solutions and staying ahead in a rapidly evolving industry.

The post Addison Group Celebrates 25 Years with a Brand Refresh appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

‘Tis The Season For Sustainability

It’s often said that if you’re seeking something but can’t find it, the best option is to create it yourself. Libby Hampel followed that advice when founding MASU, a company that reflects her passion for design and the environment in a line of gift-wrapping paper that’s made in America, 100% recyclable, and bold in design.

Hampel, a Columbia, Missouri resident, began her design journey studying and experimenting with surface pattern designs like fabric and wallpaper and eventually transitioned into textile design. She spent many years developing her trademark design style and sense of color that, coupled with an eco-friendly profile, has won the MASU brand a devoted following.

In keeping with Hampel’s personal ethics and principles, MASU sources only recyclable and sustainable materials throughout every facet of the production process – from packaging and shipping containers to the paper itself. For its key element, MASU relies upon the New Hampshire-based and family-owned Monadnock Paper Mills. The over 200-year-old mill is the oldest continuously operating paper mill in the U.S., a longevity matched by the company’s deep commitment to sustainability. Monadnock’s Astrolite 100 PC Velvet coated paper is made of 100% PCW recycled content and is ideal for coated fine text and cover applications. Hampel found that the ink doesn’t absorb into the high-quality coating of the paper, making her designs and colors really pop.

MASU’s core values are reflected in all facets of the company’s operation, including its name. In Japanese there are two words for giving: agemasu and kuremasu. Agemasu is used when you are giving to someone, while kuremasu is used when someone is giving to you. True to Hampel’s vision, MASU embodies all forms of giving, and the result is wrapping paper that looks good, feels good, and does good.

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An incomplete or poorly written RFP can signal disorganization, lack of clarity, or a misunderstanding of your firm’s own goals and needs—putting both your credibility and the project’s success at risk. On the other hand, a thoughtful, comprehensive RFP demonstrates strategic thinking and positions your firm as one that values precision and expertise. This guide is designed to help you structure an RFP that not only captures your firm’s identity and goals but also anticipates the needs and constraints of your internal and external stakeholders. By setting clear expectations from the outset, you will streamline the selection process and ultimately achieve a brand and digital presence that reflects your firm’s strengths.

Project Overview and Strategic Alignment

Begin by providing a high-level summary of the project’s purpose and its strategic relevance to your firm. This section should articulate how the project supports long-term goals, such as expanding into new markets, improving client engagement, or positioning your firm as a thought leader in specific practice areas. Be clear about why this is the right time to initiate the project and highlight key drivers that make this initiative critical to your firm’s success.

Key points to include:

• The strategic importance of the project to your firm’s growth and positioning
• The specific objectives you aim to achieve, whether related to brand perception, website functionality, or client experience
• Any recent shifts in focus or new developments that have influenced the decision to pursue this work

Defining Scope and Deliverables

Set clear boundaries around what this project will encompass. Law firms often have complex needs that touch multiple areas, from brand strategy to digital assets. Define what you expect the creative partner to deliver, including brand strategy, visual identity, verbal identity, and technical website specifications. Additionally, outline any known constraints, such as internal resources, existing brand elements that must be retained, or specific legal compliance considerations.

Key elements to cover:

• Specific deliverables (e.g., brand strategy, verbal and visual identity, digital design, platform integration)
• Critical issues or challenges you anticipate
• Constraints (e.g., timeline, budget, or internal team limitations)

Current Brand and Digital Presence

Offer a candid assessment of your firm’s existing brand and digital presence. This analysis provides potential partners with insight into areas of improvement and challenges they’ll need to address. Does your current brand effectively differentiate your firm, or has it become outdated? Is your website user-friendly and reflective of your firm’s expertise, or does it struggle to engage key audiences?

Include the following:

• Strengths and weaknesses of your current brand and website
• How your brand compares to peer firms
• Any previous attempts at rebranding or significant website updates

Audience Insight and Stakeholder Involvement

It’s crucial to define the key audiences you want to reach through your rebranding and digital initiatives. Law firms often serve varied audiences, including corporate clients, potential recruits, and other stakeholders such as referral sources and industry peers. Understanding who these audiences are—and how they engage with your brand and website—will help ensure the project is tailored to resonate with their needs.

Additionally, identify internal stakeholders and decision-makers. Who needs to be consulted? Who has the final say? This will help agencies anticipate potential bottlenecks in the decision-making process.

Points to consider:

• Target audience groups (e.g., clients, recruits, industry peers)
• Internal stakeholders and decision-makers involved in the project
• Engagement metrics or data on audience behavior (if available)

Timeline and Critical Milestones

Set a realistic timeline that includes key milestones. Ensure that any internal reviews, considerations, or approval processes are factored in, and communicate any potential challenges that could affect timing—such as regulatory deadlines, trials, or major firm events. Clear milestones keep the project on track and allow all parties to manage expectations. The availability of key decision-makers often upends schedules.

Include:

• Desired kickoff and completion dates
• Milestones for key deliverables and review periods
• Any foreseen challenges that might impact the timeline

Technical Requirements and Preferences

The technical framework for your law firm’s website is foundational to its success. Whether you prefer an open-source platform like WordPress for its flexibility and lower long-term costs, or a closed-source system for heightened security, it’s important to outline any preferences at the start. Different platforms come with distinct advantages and trade-offs in terms of cost, functionality, and security.

Beyond platform preference, include technical requirements that might affect the project’s scope. For example, if your firm requires integration with a CRM, document management system, or secure client portal, these needs should be addressed upfront to avoid complications later.

Best practices to include:

• Preference for technology platforms (e.g., open-source like WordPress vs. closed-source proprietary products)
• Integration requirements (e.g., CRM, document management, secure client portals)
• Hosting and maintenance expectations (e.g., in-house vs. third-party)
• Accessibility compliance (e.g., WCAG standards)
• Security needs (e.g., encryption, multi-factor authentication)

Budget Transparency

Transparency around the budget ensures that the proposals you receive are aligned with your expectations. Provide a realistic budget range based on the scope of work, and outline any internal resources that will be available to assist with the project. Clarify whether the firm expects the creative partner to handle ongoing maintenance or if this will be managed in-house.

What to address:

• Budget range and any fiscal-year considerations
• Internal team involvement and roles
• Expectations for post-launch maintenance and support

The Ideal Creative Partner

Finally, articulate what kind of creative partner you are looking for. This section helps potential agencies understand the dynamics of your firm and the skills or attributes that are most important for success. Whether you prioritize deep legal industry knowledge, technical acumen, or a fresh creative perspective, stating this upfront will attract the right candidates.

Consider including:

• Top qualities you value in a creative partner (e.g., expertise in law firm marketing, innovative design thinking, strategic guidance)
• Expectations for communication and collaboration throughout the project

And finally…

Provide a clear roadmap for how the RFP process will proceed. Detail the next steps, including submission deadlines, how questions should be submitted, and key contact information for any clarifications. Include availability for follow-up discussions to ensure both parties can align on the project’s finer details before final decisions are made.

In closing, taking the time to craft a thoughtful and detailed RFP will not only attract the right creative partners but also reflect your firm’s professionalism and vision. By setting clear expectations and asking the right questions, you lay the groundwork for a successful rebranding and website initiative that will strengthen your firm’s position in the marketplace.

This post was originally published on Lynda’s LinkedIn newsletter, Marketing without Jargon. Lynda leads a team at Decker Design that focuses on helping law firms build differentiated brands.

Header image: Unsplash+ in collaboration with and machines.

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“Letters are magic” is the watchword of Jessica Hische, one of the world’s leading lettering artists. “Letters are an amazing playground,” she says, “a playground for art and creativity. They’re an art form that gets kids — and everyone — believing they’re artists.” But it’s inaccurate to call Hische “just” a lettering artist. She’s a bestselling author, a graphic designer with an enviable client list, and an illustrator with a delightfully sophisticated style.

She’s also the mother of three school-age children, which gives her an insider advantage when it comes to creating books that kids will love and parents will want to buy (and read aloud and collect and display). It’s no accident that her books‚ which are one hundred percent Hische productions from the cover and spine to the acknowledgments page — have sold up to 200,000 copies each.

On October 22 — that’s next Tuesday — her fifth picture book, My First Book of Fancy Letters, will be released by Penguin Random House, and Hische is currently on tour.

What places does she most enjoy visiting? Elementary schools, of course, like the two pictured above, where she’s introducing her 2021 New York Times bestseller Tomorrow I’ll Be Brave. “Kids at first don’t know what a lettering artist is,” she explains. (For a detailed explanation yourself, please see her 2015 book In Progress: Inside a Lettering Artist’s Process from Pencil to Vector.)

To break the ice at a school visit, Hische might ask, “Who has letters on their shirt?” Many kids always raise their hands, so she explains, “An artist drew those letters and made them into what they wanted to express.”

She then demonstrates that letters can have all kinds of forms and meanings. As long as the basic shape of the alphabet letter is clear, it can be Athletic, Bubbly, Creepy … or whatever you, the artist, want it to be. I personally appreciate that each letter is shown as a grown-up capital and a baby lowercase because 95 percent of the letters we read in text are lowercase. Kids who start first grade only knowing the uppercase letters are at a big disadvantage.

Spreads ABC and DEF from My First Book of Fancy Letters, © Jessica Hische, 2024

Hische might then ask, “What’s your favorite thing?” If a student says, “a rainbow,” she might encourage them to draw an ‘R’ made from a rainbow, like the one in the spread below. If another student answers, “A rocket ship,” you can already visualize the kind of ‘R’ the child will draw. This game has only one rule: you must draw the alphabet letter that matches the concept or word. So, if the word is “Prickly,” like in My First Book of Fancy Letters, in which each letter illustrates an adjective, the ‘P’ is a prickly green cactus.” The ‘F’ is definitely Flowery. And the ‘Y’ is as Yummy as a cookie with pink icing and sprinkles.

Spreads PQR and XYZ from My First Book of Fancy Letters, © Jessica Hische, 2024

“I’m not there to sell books,” Hische says of her school visits. “I’m there to inspire the kids, especially when they’re still at the age when their brains are mushy sponges. Even if the book is not specifically about letters, they’ll walk away inspired to draw letters.” Her way of organizing a talk or pitch — totally involving the audience in a creative process — could be a model for all of us.

A quick stroll through Hische’s website tells you that “lettering artist-author-designer-illustrator-mom” is still an incomplete bio. Hische is a true entrepreneur. In addition to 20 years — and counting — as a design firm principal, creating logos, posters, book jackets, packaging, and all kinds of cool stuff like holiday cookie jars for A-list clients, she owns two retail stores in her adopted hometown of Oakland, California. She describes Drawling as a kids’ art supply store and Jessica Hische &Friends as a showcase for her books and lots of flourish-y things she’s designed: limited-edition prints, posters, apparel, jewelry, and note cards. Many of the products are on the ‘shop’ section of her website, where font packages of her six original typefaces are available for sale and download — so that you, too, can design with very fancy letters.

A few examples from the extensive Jessica Hische portfolio. (l-r) Top row: Spread from the book Tomorrow You’ll Be Brave; Popcorn can from the Neiman Marcus 2022 holiday packaging suite; Poster for all-star Scott Rudin film. Center: Neiman Marcus Christmas cookie jar, based on a ceramic tree that Hische’s grandmother put out every holiday season; Promotion for a master class she teaches for Skillshare featuring her hands refining the Mailchimp logo. Bottom: Poster for the American Red Cross encouraging vaccination; Main title design and poster for Lionsgate film; Poster for Comcast used as set decoration in a film in which E.T. reunites with Elliott’s earth family; Limited-edition print.

Hische is the first to admit that from kindergarten on, she was the one whose art was most often displayed on school bulletin boards. After attending public schools in the small town in Pennsylvania where she grew up, she became “a design major who did illustration on the side” at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, graduating in 2006 with a BFA. In 2007 she came to New York to be a junior designer at Louise Fili LTD, bringing her own historically-based swashes and ligatures to the firm’s work in logo, book, and postage stamp design. Not surprisingly, the job soon became a full-time senior designer position.

“When I’m looking to hire a designer,” Fili says, “I want to see at least one portfolio piece that I wish I’d done. Jessica’s was a set of postcards for the Twelve Days of Christmas, a showcase of her skills. From day one here, she was fearless. To anything I asked of her — Can you make this type look like spaghetti? Like embroidery? Oatmeal? Ribbons? — I received an affirmative response. And the lettering was always, of course, perfect.” 

In 2009, Hische began freelancing in New York, making a name for herself and winning just about every award and accolade in the business. In 2011, her husband, the musician and web designer, now Meta design director Russ Maschmeyer, was hired by Facebook, and they moved to the Bay Area.

Hische and Maschmeyer began growing their family in 2015, now with kids aged nine, seven, and five. “I have a complicated life,” she admits, “but I could never miss one of my kids’ first steps or birthday parties. We’ll even make the cake together. Part of the reason I’ve kept my businesses small — mostly just me — is to have a ton of flexibility around family stuff. I love going to their school plays, volunteering at the school, and bringing them to sports. I’m even taking karate with my middle son!”

Letters are an amazing playground.

Jessica Hische

Portrait of the family, © Rasmus Andersson

What are the most important things Jessica Hische wants everyone to know? One: that every letter in her books is hand-drawn, first in pencil, then in Illustrator or Procreate. Other than the glyphs in the font packages, each letter is a unique work of art. Two: that she hopes that the kids (and grown-ups) on your gift list will make their own fancy letters. And have lots of fun doing it.

With Hische, even an interview can be lots of fun.

Images courtesy of Jessica Hische, except where noted.

The post Letters are Magic in Jessica Hische’s New Children’s Book appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

A Board Trustee for ArtCenter College of Design and a Board Director for the Design Management Institute, Kevin is the author of one of the top design books of recent years, Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation, which was published by MIT Press in 2022. Kevin’s next book, Nonlinear: Navigating Design with Curiosity and Conviction will be published in February of 2025.

Look for new episodes in 2025!

As an executive design leader, Doug Powell is fascinated by the experience of designers moving into new leadership roles. For most, this is completely uncharted territory; the jobs are often undefined and there is rarely a roadmap or playbook to help us succeed, so most of us have had to learn on the job. In each episode of This is a Prototype, Powell invites design leaders who have traveled a variety of life and career journeys to share their stories, compare notes, and talk about what it takes to be a leader in this new era of design.

The post This is a Prototype: Kevin Bethune appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

In today’s rapidly evolving creative landscape, the importance of collaborative teams and de-siloing design departments is becoming increasingly clear. As agencies seek to break down barriers between creative, strategy, and design, the role of design has shifted from a final aesthetic touch to a core driver of the entire process. At McCann NY, design is not just a service but an integral part of the creative journey, embedded within the agency’s core teams. By fostering cross-department collaboration, McCann has created a culture where design not only informs the work but also elevates it, challenging traditional agency models. This approach has resulted in more cohesive brand identities and inventive campaigns that drive meaningful client outcomes. I was thrilled to chat with McCann New York’s Shayne Millington, chief creative officer (left), and Matt van Leeuwen, head of design (right), to discuss the transformative impact of de-siloing design within McCann and the lessons other agencies can learn from their approach.

In what ways does McCann Design integrate design processes throughout the agency and within various departments?

Shayne Millington (SM):
At McCann, design is not an afterthought. It’s not just there to make things look pretty or to dress up a deck at the end of a project. From day one, our goal has been to make design a true partner in the creative process. 

We are becoming more visually driven, so design has become a necessity rather than a nice to have. It is crucial to a brand or agency’s success. Our team of about 20 designers is deeply embedded within the agency. They are present in every corner of our business, from new business pitches to social strategy.  

To make sure the practice is integrated, you can’t overlook where they are physically placed within the agency. That is why our designers sit alongside our creatives—at the center of where everything happens. This isn’t a separate department tucked away somewhere. It’s an integral part of our creative brain, collaborating closely with the teams to shape work that’s both visually compelling and conceptually powerful. 

For us at McCann, design is about making things that challenge people to look twice, experience things deeper, and connect with brands in unexpected ways.

How does McCann Design’s de-siloing approach challenge the traditional agency model, and what specific benefits have you observed from integrating design across all aspects of your work?

Matt van Leeuwen (ML):
In the traditional agency model, design and creative operate separately or not at all. And often times, the design team is siloed and brought in after the fact. On the other hand, if you’re working with a brand design agency, what often happens is that they will design the brand identity, then hand it off to the creative agency, who will take it and often times break the rules by giving it its own spin. It’s not efficient. Coming from a branding background, the disconnect comes when the work is different than what we designers intended.  

SM:
At McCann, we knew we wanted to take a different approach. With timelines getting shorter, we noticed that the craft and experimentation were starting to become an afterthought. So we took a different yet simple approach. We combined creativity and design under one roof with McCann Design embedded within the creative teams. We’ve brought on some of the best brand designers in the industry and have created culture-defining work for our clients like TJ Maxx with its first custom font inspired by its logo, Smirnoff’s entire global design system, and the Last Prisoner Project’s Pen to Right History campaign.

ML:
It creates exciting work, but also new ways of working and types of work. We are currently helping multiple clients with the design of their brand identity. When you combine that, with crazy cool creative ideas, the sky is the limit.

In an industry often segmented by specialized departments, how has McCann Design’s commitment to removing silos transformed the way you collaborate internally and deliver value to clients?

SM:
Designers are some of the most conceptual people in the industry. We include design from the beginning of every project. From conception to execution, it’s a collaboration between the teams. It allows for greater debate and challenges the work and learning on both sides. You start to see the lines blur and that is when you know it is working. 

The success of this is creating new opportunities within the agency. We have begun to take on design specific assignments and are entering new areas with our client’s business. In the last year, we have been embedded in all of our clients’ design systems and brand architecture.

ML:
I think of creative and design as cross-pollination, inspiring and challenging each other. For the client, design is an awesome added value; we can truly look at a client’s brand in a holistic manner. From the communication side and the purer brand side, we are bridging those worlds.

Can you share a case study or project where de-siloing had a significant impact on the outcome? What lessons did you learn from that experience that could inform other agencies looking to make similar changes?

ML:
Our work for TJ Maxx on their visual identity is a great example of creative and design collaboration from the beginning. Surprisingly it didn’t start as an identity exercise. Our work was born out of our campaign work. We noticed that the retail space TJ Maxx was operating in, was flooded with Helvetica typography. So we wanted to change that – especially as designers, we wanted to create something unique and ownable for the brand. We proposed something simple; a bespoke typeface, born out of their iconic wordmark. 

The simplicity of the typeface, designed with Jeremy Mickel, forced us to revisit the identity. We couldn’t typeset things the old way. Step by step, we are working through the visual world of TJ Maxx, ultimately resulting in new brand guidelines. In parallel, we are developing campaigns in the same new look. It’s extremely exciting, the way this all comes together. 

To me, it’s living proof that silos don’t have to exist, but we can operate fluidly.  

SM:
Another great example is our most recent work for the New York Lottery. As its agency of record for the last decade, we’ve produced some of the category’s most impactful campaigns. Now, we are incorporating ideas around the design for the scratch cards (most recently for the “Grande” games) that align with the creative communication allowing for a much more holistic and surprising way to engage with the brand.

As agencies continue to evolve, what do you believe are the most pressing challenges to fully integrating design across all functions, and how is McCann Design addressing these challenges?

SM:
One of the most pressing challenges is breaking down the siloes between departments and fostering a culture where design isn’t just an afterthought – it’s a core driver of the creative. When you include more creative voices in the conversation, something amazing happens. It ignites the culture of the agency. The conversations get richer and the solutions become more unexpected. You can move quicker, and the community grows. It’s because you are bringing new experts with new capabilities and new energy to the table, which allows for impactful creativity to flourish.

In the last two years, with Matt heading up the McCann Design practice, we’ve done that. Built design from the ground up – the team, the capabilities – a home for design to shine and a culture where design is celebrated.

ML:
It’s very hard to explain the amount of craft and time that goes into design. The development of a visual narrative, the workings of color, typography, and image. It’s a delicate exercise that doesn’t always abide by the same timeframe of let’s say a campaign idea. So, time. Time to develop, tinker, and play, is of extreme importance. I like to say that design is a playground. We don’t have a house style. We don’t operate within a fixed framework. Every project is unique with its own set of challenges. With all those variables, it’s important to create time to make the best work. If we truly are creating a playground for design, we need to make the time to play.

Bring design into the process as early as possible. This gives designers the time they need to create and iterate throughout the creative process.

How does the de-siloing of design at McCann Design influence your agency’s creative process and strategic thinking? What role does leadership play in fostering a culture of integration and collaboration?

SM:
As soon as a project kicks off, my first question is – where is design? I bring them in from the beginning and they are with us for the journey. Collaboration across all departments is key to getting the best creative product.

McCann Design has been recognized by Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards, MONOCLE’s Design Awards, and leading industry creative accolades like ADC’s Best in Show, Designism, Best of Discipline in Typography, Cannes Lion for Design Driven Effectiveness, Epica’s Grand Prix, and One Show’s Best of Discipline, to name a few, and there’s no doubt that their approach to collaborative creativity is a reason for these accolades.

I’m all about tearing down walls, and I have no doubt that more agencies and big corporations will follow suit—especially with today’s remote, agile workforce making it easier than ever to rethink how we work together.

The post De-Siloing Design: McCann Reimagines Collaboration in the Creative Process appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

You may recall Nike bringing in John Donahoe, a former Bain consultant and “Digital Guy” who replaced Mark Parker the “Creative Guy.”

And while the desire to modernize and streamline Nike was sound, the results were disastrous: destruction of the value of some $28 billion. And the loss of something, that’s arguably even more valuable: cool.

This week, Nike took care of business by exiting Mr. Donahue and luring back longtime Nike executive Elliot Hill, to the top post. Mr. Hill has held a variety of Nike roles in his three-decade career with the company all of which started in the Nike “Sports Graphics” department. A creative department.

All of this windup brings me to the real topic of this post: Product.

You see, as Nike turned its focus onto systems, supply chains, and digital experiences, it turned its eye away from its heart and soul: sneakers.

You could say, “It’s the sneakers, stupid.” Sneakers are the thing that Nike should never lose focus on. Streamline the enterprise? Sure. Challenge distribution models? Ok. But never ignore your bread and butter. And bread and butter are products.

Products are what drive companies. Look no further than the Apple revival of 1997. Steve Jobs came back to the ailing computer company and streamlined the product portfolio adjusting the focus to making core products like Mac and PowerBook, and then innovating with iPod.

At Nissan, at the dawn of the 21st century, then-CEO Carlos Ghosn famously proclaimed, “There is no problem at a car company that good products can’t solve.” And extremely popular and best-selling new Nissan models from Altima to Z proved this point.

Hollywood has forever been saved by a blockbuster product. Godfather for Paramount. Star Wars for 20th Century Fox. Batman for Warner Bros.

In my own personal experience, when I was CEO of TBWA\Chiat\Day NY, creative product truly changed the fortunes of the company as we pumped out incredible and award-winning work for the likes of adidas, H&M, Hilton, McDonald’s, Michelin and Nissan.

At the time, we changed a lot of systems and people — but we never lost sight and obsession with our creative product.

Product.

It’s the thing that will save Nike.

And it’s the thing that will help drive you.

What are you working on?

What’s your product?

Rob Schwartz is the Chair of the TBWA New York Group and an executive coach who channels his creativity, experience and wisdom into helping others get where they want to be. This was originally posted on his Substack, RobSchwartzHelps, where he covers work, life, and creativity.

Header photo: Allison Saeng for Unsplash+.

The post What’s Your Product? appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Welcome to the DesignThinkers Podcast! Join host and RGD President Nicola Hamilton as she digs into the archives of the DesignThinkers conference, reconnecting with past speakers about their talks and ideas that have shaped Canada’s largest graphic design conference. Follow the RGD on Instagram @rgdcanada or visit them at rgd.ca. Purchase tickets to the upcoming DesignThinkers conference at designthinkers.com.

The post DesignThinkers Podcast: Erin Sarofsky appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The accomplishment Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. is most proud of, is that 6,000 Americans display his prints on their walls. There’s perhaps no better anecdote to describe Kennedy’s humble, generous, thoughtful spirit, on full display in the pages of the gorgeous monograph Citizen Printer and in our Book Club discussion.

If you missed our live conversation, this one was truly special and worth a watch!

Kennedy was exposed to letterpress printing as a ten-year-old in Louisiana with his Cub Scout troop. He rues that in our contemporary, digital culture, people don’t always have access to see how things are made. “I just watched him work,” Kennedy said, “The pride that he took in making these things, in workmanship, I picked that up.”

One doesn’t realize what effect an encounter will have on our lives.

Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.

Kennedy talked about his career trajectory from a “one-time business bureaucrat,” to taking what he deemed the easy path: “I decided to do what made me happy.” He’s a practitioner of bad printing, a term he uses to describe his lack of formal training, his use of layering, and his self-described sloppy, hurried technique.

There are other followers of “bad printing,” notably the Dutch experimental artist and typographer HN Werkman. Kennedy, like Werkman, values the power and influence of printed matter, saying, “Printing is always a dangerous business. The dissemination of information is dangerous.”

Dangerous, and important. Kennedy’s manifesto is passionate and provocative: I PRINT NEGRO. “Those voices that have been suppressed, I have to use my press to put those voices out in the world,” he says.

He considers himself an agitator (and our culture is better served with his hard truths). Listening to Kennedy, one can’t help but absorb his palpable joy and contentment in his work.

I try to put ink on paper everyday. Then it’s a complete day.

Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.

We’ve only scratched the surface of this incredible conversation. We hope you’ll register here to watch the recording. Psst: Kennedy offered a free postcard print to everyone who attended. You’ll have to watch it to find out how!

If you haven’t purchased your copy of Citizen Printer, order one here. Your design bookshelf will thank you!

Links & diversions from this live stream:

Kennedy refurbished an old building as his print shop, starting in 2016. Check out the photo album.

Clear some space in your studio. Posterhouse NYC has two Kennedy prints in the shop. We Tried to Warn You! (2023) and the Posterhouse 2021 anniversary print. Smaller in scale, Kennedy’s Sista Said postcard set at Letterform Archive offers words of wisdom from Black women in social justice and the arts.

Go see the gorgeous exhibition that accompanies this monograph at Letterform Archive in San Francisco! On view until January 2025, Citizen Printer showcases 150 type-driven artifacts produced throughout Kennedy’s career, including broadsides, maps, church fans, handbills, and oversized posters.

The post PRINT Book Club Recap with Joyful Agitator, Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Jenna has navigated changing circumstances many times in her long design career, and she brings a refreshing candor to the discussion, openly sharing the challenges and joys of professional and personal reinvention. Doug and Jenna discuss the emotional strain they’re seeing in many of their design leadership peers, the increased need for supportive community connections, and specific tactics for approaching mid-career job searches.

The post This is a Prototype: Jenna Date appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Welcome to the DesignThinkers Podcast! Join host and RGD President Nicola Hamilton as she digs into the archives of the DesignThinkers conference, reconnecting with past speakers about their talks and ideas that have shaped Canada’s largest graphic design conference. Follow the RGD on Instagram @rgdcanada or visit them at rgd.ca. Purchase tickets to the upcoming DesignThinkers conference at designthinkers.com.

The post DesignThinkers Podcast: Mikey Richardson & Mike Kelar RGD appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Welcome to the DesignThinkers Podcast! Join host and RGD President Nicola Hamilton as she digs into the archives of the DesignThinkers conference, reconnecting with past speakers about their talks and ideas that have shaped Canada’s largest graphic design conference. Follow the RGD on Instagram @rgdcanada or visit them at rgd.ca. Purchase tickets to the upcoming DesignThinkers conference at designthinkers.com.

The post DesignThinkers Podcast: Aaron Draplin appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

While nuanced, the distinction between account and project management roles and functions within creative teams is significant. Within your team, it is important to detangle one from the other, considering the different responsibilities as well as skill sets these roles require and even the connotation and weight that different titles carry. And, while the account and project management roles can—and sometimes should—be merged within creative firms, let’s first break the responsibilities of these roles out in the purest of terms.

Account Management

• Focus on building and growing relationships with existing clients
• Know the ins and outs of the client’s needs
• Represent and advocate for the client internally
• Often supports on:
  • Business development by:
    • Growing a client’s business
    • Being involved in new business meetings
    • Developing proposals
    • This is often a growth opportunity for this role
  • Strategy by:
    • Supporting strategists (and creative leads) with their unique client insight and understanding
    • Being involved in strategy development
    • This is often a growth opportunity for this role
  • Project management by:
    • Collaborating with the other team members to find the right balance between and navigate client vs. internal needs

• Responsible for client management, including but not limited to:
  • Keeping the client informed and on track every step of the way through a project
  • Leading and facilitating client communications and meetings
  • Being a resource and asking the right questions to the client to ensure project success and continued relationship growth
  • Thinking strategically about client’s needs, feedback, etc., to ensure their business objectives are being met
  • Navigating the delicate balance of client satisfaction and happiness while ensuring project scope, profitability, etc.

Project Management

• Focus on guiding projects from A to Z
• Know the ins and outs of internal processes
• Represent and advocate for internal goals and the team (e.g., morale, workload, etc.)
• Often supports on:
  • Operations by:
    • Researching, developing, implementing, maintaining, and onboarding the team on the best, simplest, and most appropriate processes, systems, and tools
    • This is often a growth opportunity for this role
  • Business development by:
    • Supporting proposal development and negotiations, specifically in terms of scoping, prices and estimates, and timelines
  • Client management by:
    • Collaborating with other team members to find the right balance between and navigate internal vs. client needs
    • Leading select client communications and meetings
    • This is often a growth opportunity for this role
• Responsible for project management, including but not limited to:
  • Keeping the internal team and partners (e.g., freelancers, contractors) informed and on track every step of the way through the development, management, and negotiation of the project:
    • Schedules and timelines
    • Budgets (and profitability)
    • Task assignments
    • Resourcing
  • Leading and facilitating internal communications and meetings
  • Being available and asking the right questions to the team to ensure project success
  • Thinking strategically about internal workflows, business and profitability goals, etc.
  • Navigating internal challenges, conflict, scope and schedule creep, etc.

To Merge or Not to Merge

Both account and project management roles are crucial within your firm, but should these be the same or different roles? Let’s break it down.

Separating Account and Project Management

The model of separating the account and project management roles works best at larger firms and agencies that have:

• Clients that require a lot of support and management (i.e., typically larger clients with many stakeholders, decision-makers, layers of management, etc.)
• Multiple projects they’re working on under each client at any given moment
• Projects where there are many moving parts and pieces (e.g., advertising and marketing projects)

By separating these roles, you create efficiency by having people on your team with dedicated responsibilities to handle the workload and management requirements of this client and project structure. That is:

• Account Managers are dedicated to the client:
  • Focused purely on relationship-building, being the client advocate, being acutely aware of their needs, growing their business, etc., without the distraction of being involved in the day-to-day management of bringing a client’s projects from A to Z
  • They are the client’s day-to-day partner and resource
  • And, sometimes, having someone in this dedicated role holds weight for larger clients who expect to have a dedicated contact with this title (e.g., Account Manager, Client Partner)
• Project Managers are dedicated to the project and internal team:
  • Focused purely on managing the day-to-day management—from negotiating resourcing to keeping tabs on the team on task assignments—of bringing a client’s project from A to Z without the distraction of being involved in navigating the client relationship
  • They are the team’s day-to-day contact and resource
  • And, sometimes, having someone in this dedicated role holds weight for the internal team that then has a dedicated point person (e.g., Project Manager, Producer) for project questions, concerns, etc.

By separating these roles, you can also create an effective “good guy, bad guy” scenario, where the Account Manager and Project Manager work together to strike the right balance between client and internal needs and priorities. For example, consider a situation where a client requests to shift or delay the agreed-upon schedule. The Account Manager can defer to the Project Manager to address the situation by responding and/or providing more context to determine if a “no” or pushback is warranted, then explaining what is possible, what the implications of the delay to the project overall will be,” etc.

That said, tensions can arise if the Account and Project Managers do not consider their goals the same and take action without considering and involving their counterpart when applicable. For example, consider a situation where the Account Manager promises a quick turnaround on a deliverable or another round of edits to a client without checking in with the Project Manager to see what is doable; this could obviously create internal conflict.

Therefore, Account and Project Managers must find a way to always be (or at least end up) on the same team and support each other even when their priorities differ. They must carefully navigate the “good guy” and “bad guy” roles, ultimately presenting as a united front to the client and the internal team.

Merging Account and Project Management

On the other hand, the model of merging the account and project management roles and functions works best and, ultimately, more efficiently at mid-sized firms that have:

• Clients that require less hand-holding (i.e., fewer stakeholders, decision-makers, and layers of management)
• Only one or two projects they’re working on under each client at any given moment
• More defined projects with fewer moving parts and pieces

At these firms, typically, the Account/Project Manager’s responsibilities are roughly spread across the client and project sides:

• Project Management (30-40%)
• Client and Relationship Management (30-40%)
• Operations Management (10-20%)
• Business Development Support (10-20%)

By merging these responsibilities into one role, you create efficiency by having one person on your team dedicated to all the ins and outs of a client and their project(s). That is, an Account/Project Manager, in this capacity, always has the full context of everything from client idiosyncrasies to internal resourcing challenges to ultimately strike the right balance between client and internal needs and priorities.

Depending on the needs of your team, the Account/Project Manager can be supported by someone more junior (e.g., an Account/Project Coordinator) to handle more day-to-day project trafficking responsibilities such as asset sourcing, timeline updates (with oversight), task management, etc.

That said, it can prove difficult for a Project Manager to feel comfortable pushing back on a client when, for example, there is scope and schedule creep, as they are also responsible for nurturing and growing the relationship. Often, because of this, when a firm has this merged model, the firm principal is involved in more client and relationship management to ensure the continued satisfaction and growth of the client.

Account/Project Managers functioning within both account and project management roles must be incredibly strategic and thoughtful in aligning client and internal priorities. They must carefully navigate the “good” and the “bad” guy roles to serve both the client and the internal team.

When You Don’t Need Either Role

If you are a team consisting of four or fewer creatives or creatives-adjacent, you do not need anyone in a dedicated account and/or project management role just yet. For smaller firms, the firm principal should take the lead on account and project management, with the support of a more mid- to senior-level team that can handle and manage the day-to-day client communications and the projects they are working on.

Whichever Way You Go

Whether your firm merges the account and management roles or not, a couple of skill sets are crucial for both roles:

• An interest in and thorough understanding of the type of creative work the team does
• The ability to:
  • think creatively
  • solve problems
  • manage and navigate conflict
  • communicate effectively and concisely
  • work with a variety of personalities
  • pivot easily when new priorities arise
  • be organized and detail-oriented

And, these roles can only be successful if they are clearly defined both internally and externally. The client and your team need to understand who to go to and for what, who has decision-making authority, and in what capacity, etc. This question of “who” should further be supported by detailed job descriptions, clear reporting structure, standard operating procedures (SOPs), communication guidelines, leadership support, etc., that reflect how account and project management roles come to life and by who within your team.

Ultimately, whichever way you go, the responsibilities of the account and project management roles and functions within your team are critical. These roles are the foundation for how your team builds and maintains client relationships and successfully takes a client’s projects from A to Z. So, whether these roles are fulfilled by two separate people and teams, the same people, creative team members responsible for managing their own projects, or the principal of your firm, they are a must-have.

Read more in the Business of Creativity series:

How Creative Businesses Can Advocate for our Firms, Our People, and our Profession

Strategies for Building Your New Business Pipeline

The New Creative Team

Hunter Vargas and Emily Cohen are business partners and consultants at Casa Davka who offer customized business solutions to creative firms so they are able to refine, evolve, and elevate their strategies and practices. Emily has been in the business for over 30+ years, partnered with 500+ leading creative firms, and is a frequently requested main-stage speaker. Hunter is an experienced marketer, project manager, client partner, and business development manager. They also happen to be a mother/daughter pair, so they work together seamlessly, complementing (and challenging) each other in many ways.

All illustrations by Luis Miguel Rendón (@batz_art_).

The post The Business of Creativity: Detangling Account & Project Management appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The RFP process has a number of faults — the biggest one being that it doesn’t initiate a great partnership or yield exceptional work.

The Problem(s) with RFP

Because it’s formulaic and standardized, the RFP seems like it levels the playing field, makes everything easy on you and your team, and unearths all the information you’ll need to make an objective decision. In fact, the opposite is true.

Most RFPs we encounter from nonprofits outline a specific problem the organization wants to solve. But defining the problem in itself requires expertise and an outside perspective — exactly what you’re looking for in a partner. And in our experience, the problem you’re hiring someone to solve is often not the real problem at all.

Second, a great solution — the visual artifact you put out in the world — is only as good as the process that leads to it. That process is all about people interacting, collaborating, listening to each other, and being guided to enable such an artifact to be possible. So it’s critical that the right chemistry is there for great work to happen. No matter how thorough the RFP process is, it will never give you a full, honest, authentic picture of the team you are about to task with a very important project. In fact, the process tends to homogenize respondents, as each agency shares the same kinds of work samples, ill-informed guesses at possible strategies, and ballpark fees based on fuzzy scopes of work. And because the information flow is one-directional — from the agencies to you — it leaves out critical information about the culture of your own team that’s essential to determine if you and any given firm are a great match.

Finally, while your charter or Board of Directors may require that you solicit bids from three or more agencies for projects like this, let’s acknowledge that the RFP process is a big waste of time for your organization and for the agencies pitching for your business. Most of the design firms on your list are small companies whose resources are taxed by all the work required to submit a proposal. (If you’ve already made up your mind and the other firms don’t have a shot, then the process is really unfair.) And consider the amount of time your organization invests in creating, sending out, and assessing RFPs and then hashing out the final selection.

Can you learn the same information in less time? Can you learn the same info in a better way? Can you learn better info in a better way?

The process tends to homogenize respondents, as each agency shares the same kinds of work samples, ill-informed guesses at possible strategies, and ballpark fees based on fuzzy scopes of work.

A Better Way to Choose a Strategic Partner

Instead of the time-wasting, fuzzy RFP slog, there’s a different way — a way that will yield fresh, effective, co-created ideas and will make the process a hell of a lot more exciting for everyone involved.

1) Orient the process towards conversation rather than documents.

Start by creating a thorough project brief you can share with prospective partners. This can serve as a conversation starter when you talk to potential agency partners about your organization, your project, and what’s keeping you up at night. It will help you organize your thoughts, and help potential creative partners ask better questions. Trust your instincts; you’ll know if the chemistry is right when you talk to someone. You’ll know when there’s enough common interest to want to jump into a working relationship.

If an agency’s experience, expertise, and interest in being your partner isn’t obvious to you after you talk to them, or if they’re not exactly what you’re looking for, it’s better for both parties to be honest about it early on rather than go through the cumbersome and forced process of lengthy courtships and proposals. No hurt feelings.

Worried about verifying credentials? Agency websites showcasing past projects, personal referrals, or past client testimonials allow you to do that.

Worried about prices? If you’re comparing analogous firms (similar size and market), pricing is going to be about the same give or take 10% to 15%. If you’re comparing vastly different firms (very small vs. huge or firms with different expertise), you’ll obviously get very different responses. This approach is usually indicative of the fact that you haven’t properly defined your project or your team lacks understanding of the agency landscape. Both of these will put you in a bad position to choose the right partner, which is yet another reason why it’s better to rely on exploratory conversations rather than formal proposals.

2) Start with Discovery instead of diving into the full project.

If you’re going through the trouble and time of putting together an RFP, you are probably ready to invest a substantial amount of money on your project. If you’re about to spend $100K to $300K on a project, it’s understandable that you want to be confident in choosing the right partner, but an agency’s RFP response, much like an individual’s college GPA, will only tell you so much.

There’s no better litmus test than working with the agency partner your instinct is pointing you toward, but you can start small. Rather than engaging in the full project scope, ask if you can contract them for a narrower Discovery scope. The objective of this engagement is to conduct all the necessary research (landscape, audience, creative, etc.) to properly define your project’s objectives and opportunities. This is work that will need to get done anyway. Doing it as an initial engagement grants you the double benefit of letting you test out the working relationship and setting you up to invest in the project you really need rather than the one you thought you needed. At 10% to 20% of the overall project budget, you’re effectively removing most of the risk of investing your full budget in the wrong project with the wrong partner.

Relationships Don’t Start on Paper

Just as you wouldn’t choose a life partner solely based on their qualifications on paper, you shouldn’t choose a creative partner that way. And we mean partner — this is a significant relationship. Our clients talk about working with us as therapeutic. They tell us about what they are struggling to achieve, the pressures they are facing from the board or from competition, a constant race to keep up with technology standards, a lack of alignment among staff about purpose and values. Almost always, they hit a point where they have to wrestle with deeply existential questions of who they are and how they fit into this world.

The RFP process is far too impersonal, abstract, and clinical to yield a deep relationship with an agency that’s passionate about and committed to advancing your cause. The organizations that sidestep the RFP process and choose to work with us are ready to have a different conversation. They demonstrate they’re excited about finding a way to work together and inherently trust in our expertise. This public display of affection immediately makes us feel more committed and excited about finding a way to work together.

In the end, it leads to deeper relationships, more immediate trust — and more effective work.

This essay is by Sruthi Sadhujan, senior strategy director, and Deroy Peraza, partner at Hyperakt, a purpose-driven design and innovation studio that elevates human dignity and ignites curiosity. Originally posted in their newsletter, Insights by Hyperakt.

Illustration by Merit Myers.

The post Why RFPs Aren’t Good for Anyone appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Photo of Richard Hollant by Mike Marques.

The post This is a Prototype: Richard Hollant appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Welcome to the DesignThinkers Podcast! Join host and RGD President Nicola Hamilton as she digs into the archives of the DesignThinkers conference, reconnecting with past speakers about their talks and ideas that have shaped Canada’s largest graphic design conference. Follow the RGD on Instagram @rgdcanada or visit them at rgd.ca. Purchase tickets to the upcoming DesignThinkers conference at designthinkers.com.

The post DesignThinkers Podcast: Michael Bierut appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The post This is a Prototype: Daniela Marzavan appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Nike has lost $112 billion dollars in market capitalization since January 2020.

Since that time the Dow Jones is up 39%, the S&P is up 41%, and the Nasdaq is up 53%.

But Nike is down 30%.

So what’s the difference between now and then?

Well, for one, Nike changed CEOs.

John Donahoe replaced Mark Parker.

John Donahoe is known as a “Digital guy.”

Mark Parker was a “Creative.”

And in making this change, Nike took their eye off the ball. Literally. They went from focusing on athletes and product to focusing on digital transformation and performance marketing.

I have a theory about this. It’s all about what I call, the “Creative CEO.”

For a Creative CEO, it’s as simple as: People, Process, and Product. And if all is aligned that leads to Profit.

A Creative CEO is a leader who prioritizes the assets of a business beyond the numbers. (Knowing that these assets drive the numbers).

It’s a different point of view.

It begins with a creative’s need to simplify. As in what’s a business?

For a Creative CEO, it’s as simple as: People, Process, and Product. And if all is aligned that leads to Profit.

Now, if that third P, Product, isn’t insanely great — a Creative CEO knows there’s a real problem.

This has been true for Nike. The sneaker product has been good, but not insanely great.

Also, focus on digital transformation has come at the expense of a more generic retail experience (and the shopping experience is something Nike has traditionally been insanely great at).

Want some more Creative CEO thinking?

Creative CEOs put a premium and priority on creating a Vision — and executing to it.

When Mark Parker was in charge, he re-committed to the Nike founders’ original Vision expressed as the “11 Maxims.”

It is our nature to innovate.

Nike is a company.

Nike is a brand.

Simplify and go.

The consumer decides.

Be a sponge.

Evolve immediately.

Do the right thing.

Master the fundamentals.

We are on the offense—always.

Remember the man (the late Bill Bowerman, Nike co-founder)

And under Parker there was relentless innovation and creativity which ultimately yielded a steady and strong profit.

Nike is still the number one brand in all of sport.

And they will no doubt bounce back.

In fact, Nike launched a return to form of sorts with their recent Olympics advertising.

Could this be a sign that Mr Donahoe is starting to become a “Creative CEO?”

Rob Schwartz is the Chair of the TBWA New York Group and an executive coach who channels his creativity, experience and wisdom into helping others get where they want to be. This was originally posted on his Substack, RobSchwartzHelps, where he covers work, life, and creativity.

Header image: Unsplash+ in collaboration with Getty Images.

The post The Creative CEO Theory at Work appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

In 1999, we looked ahead to the new millennium. Concerns about a Y2K bug were kicking around. The Matrix was winning at the box office, and The X-Files and The Sopranos were at the height of their popularity. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator were becoming industry standards, and creativity was thriving across all disciplines.

1999 was also the second year of the PRINT New Visual Artists showcase. Launched the prior year as a way for the PRINT editorial team to seek out and identify emerging visual artists from around the world, the inaugural class included an impressive list of designers, including Michael Braley. Five years earlier, Braley had graduated from Iowa State and was working at Cahan & Associates, looking ahead to his burgeoning career.

I knew I wanted to be in San Francisco. I loved the city and its creative pulse. After a few years, in which I was lucky to work with Stone Yamashita and then Elixir Design, I landed at Cahan & Associates where I worked on projects ranging from brand identity to packaging to annual reports.

Michael Braley, 2024

Trimble Newsletter | Stone Yamashita; Seeing Jazz Book Cover | Elixir Design; 1997 Annual Report Design for COR Therapeutics | Cahan & Associates

I always believed it was important to be recognized especially as a young designer. I remember going to interviews with my big black portfolio, which had a side pocket with the magazines in which I had been featured and Post-it notes marking the pages with my work. Bill (Cahan) also knew the value of award recognition. (I think he’s won thousands in his career). So, when I asked him to endorse me for the PRINT New Visual Artist showcase, he said an enthusiastic yes!

Michael Braley, 2024

Sappi Ideas that Matter Tenth Anniversary Promotion

After twelve years in San Francisco and being in demand, Braley worked for a time at VSA Partners before relocating to Kentucky. His business, Braley Design, has been flourishing for thirty-one years.

Braley, known for his clear, simple, and impactful work, has a mantra: communicate immediately and aim for seamless integration between form and content. His work has been recognized internationally and is in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, the Denver Art Museum, the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe (Art and Design) in Hamburg, Finland’s Lahti Poster Museum, and The Museum of the Marie Curie-Skłodowska University, in Lublin, Poland.

Poster Designs by Michael Braley

I still believe that it’s important to put yourself out there to your colleagues, peers and potential clients. When you’re young, it’s all about carving a path for yourself and finding your place in the creative landscape. For me, participating in competitions is about being exposed to new techniques and ideas so that my work remains relevant and being inspired so that I can always find the joy in design.

Michael Braley, 2024

Brand Identity and Catalog Design for United States International Poster Biennial 2023

Do you want to share your skill, talent, and joy? Do you believe your work has longevity? Inspire others to follow your path by entering the 2024 PRINT New Visual Artists showcase!

Featured Image – Book Design for The Woven Perspective, The Work of Photographer Jock MacDonald

The post A Look Back with Michael Braley, NVA Class of 1999 appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Clarity: Simplifying Complexity

In an environment where economic conditions vary widely and the future feels uncertain, clients seek clarity and reassurance from their financial and legal advisors. Strategic design can play a pivotal role in simplifying complex information, making it more accessible and understandable. By employing clean, intuitive layouts and clear typography, firms can present data and insights in a manner that reduces confusion and fosters informed decision-making.

For instance, interactive infographics and user-friendly dashboards can transform intricate financial data into digestible visual narratives. This not only helps clients grasp essential information quickly but also positions the firm as a transparent and reliable partner in navigating economic challenges.

A prime example is Charles Schwab’s Intelligent Portfolios platform. Launched in 2015, this robo-advisor service aimed to simplify investment management for retail clients. The platform’s user interface was designed with a focus on clarity and ease of use, featuring intuitive visualizations of portfolio allocations, performance metrics, and risk assessments.

According to Schwab’s 2019 annual report, the Intelligent Portfolios platform saw a 37% year-over-year increase in new accounts. The company attributed this growth largely to the platform’s user-friendly design and clear presentation of complex financial information. Neesha Hathi, Chief Digital Officer at Charles Schwab, stated in an interview with Financial Planning magazine, “Our focus on intuitive design and clear data visualization has been key to helping our clients understand and engage with their investments more effectively.”

There’s plenty of data reflecting design’s impact on client retention and engagement.

1. According to a 2022 study by Deloitte, financial institutions that prioritized user experience design saw an average increase of 32% in client engagement metrics.¹
2. The J.D. Power 2023 U.S. Wealth Management Digital Experience Study found that wealth management firms with top-quartile digital design scores experienced 28% higher client retention rates compared to those in the bottom quartile.²
3. A 2021 McKinsey report on digital transformation in financial services revealed that companies investing in user-centric design for their digital platforms reported a 20% increase in customer satisfaction scores and a 15% reduction in customer support calls.³
4. The Capgemini World Retail Banking Report 2022 indicated that banks with highly rated mobile app interfaces saw a 42% increase in active mobile users over a 12-month period, compared to a 17% increase for banks with lower-rated interfaces.⁴

Trust: Building and Maintaining Client Confidence

Trust is the cornerstone of any successful relationship between a firm and its clients, especially during times of uncertainty. Design can significantly enhance the perception of trustworthiness.

Elements such as consistent branding, professional aesthetics, and user-centric design contribute to a sense of reliability and stability. Consider a study on trust from Stanford University conducted by BJ Fogg, Founder of the Persuasive Technology Lab:

“Credibility is essentially multi-dimensional, and since people interact with computers via a screen, that makes building credibility all the more challenging. When people started to build web pages, Fogg and his team wanted to understand what made people assign credibility to those pages and trust their content. Since websites were a totally new concept when these studies took place and were a new way to present information, there wasn’t much of a starting point. Fogg performed a large-scale credibility study by showing people different websites that were designed well or poorly, and found that what mattered most was, did the page look good? If it looked good, the assumption was the information was credible, and that was far and away the most important thing that determined whether people thought information was credible. When I asked Jakob Nielson, a world-renowned design and usability expert, why people feel more comfortable with well-designed sites, he explained that a lot of the thought process is about comfort and familiarity.

“Think about the old banks,” he said. When you walked into the institutions, they had these huge marble statues in the middle of the floor. This was meant to evoke power and strength and confidence so you could trust the institution to look after your money. When it comes to the web, good design offers the same feeling of trust. Nielsen explained that little things like a logo, a phone number or clean, well-designed fonts, offer a sense of familiarity with real-world objects. Fogg’s research candidly shows that it doesn’t matter who makes the information we consume, but that we add influence and authenticity on the basis of aesthetics.”

Design can be a powerful tool for financial and legal firms facing economic uncertainty. Just as the grand architecture of old banks conveyed stability and trust, modern design elements—such as clean fonts, bright colors, and intuitive layouts—can evoke similar feelings of confidence and reliability. By prioritizing aesthetics and user experience, firms can build credibility and ensure clients feel secure, even in volatile times. Fogg’s insights remind us that in the digital age, the visual appeal and professional design of a firm’s online presence are critical in shaping perceptions and fostering trust.

As financial and legal firms navigate these challenging economic times, embracing design as a strategic tool can be the key to maintaining client relationships and ensuring long-term success. By addressing the fears and anxieties of an electorate facing political volatility and global radicalization, firms can solidify their role as beacons of stability and trust amidst a landscape of economic and social unpredictability.

1. Deloitte. (2022). “2022 Banking and Capital Markets Outlook.” ↩︎
2. J.D. Power. (2023). “2023 U.S. Wealth Management Digital Experience Study.” ↩︎
3. McKinsey & Company. (2021). “The value of design in digital transformations.” ↩︎
4. Capgemini. (2022). “World Retail Banking Report 2022.” ↩︎

This post was originally published on Lynda’s LinkedIn newsletter, Marketing without Jargon. Lynda leads a team at Decker Design that focuses on helping law firms build differentiated brands.

Header image © Decker Design.

The post Design Can Help Firms Strategically Navigate Uncertain Times appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Doug’s guest for this episode is Vivek Rao, director of the Masters of Engineering in Design & Technology Innovation program at the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering. A mechanical engineer by training, Vivek spent his early career at the design and innovation consultancy IDEO. He then did his PhD studies in design, innovation, and emerging technology at the University of California, Berkeley, before joining Duke in 2023.

The post This is a Prototype: Vivek Rao appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Creative Humans: How Are You Really Doing?

Take part in the annual Creative Voices Heard survey. ZWC is collecting responses until August 12 and results will be shared this fall.

Left: Brandi Parker; Right: Fe Amarante

The survey is open to a broad spectrum of creative professionals, from UX researchers and production artists to writers, photographers, art directors, designers, copywriters, and strategists. Amarante and Parker are eager to gather insights from every corner of the creative world.

Why This Survey, Why Now?

Amarante comes from the creative and design side of the industry, and Parker hails from realization and production; they have noticed a significant gap in the dialogue surrounding sustainability and long-term career viability for creatives. They aim to bridge this gap by providing a platform for creative professionals to share their experiences and feelings about industry practices.

Creativity is often seen as a subjective and mysterious process but is actually grounded in the objective conditions of everyday professional environments. Through this survey, Amarante and Parker hope to illuminate how creative makers are truly faring and how the dynamics of teams, workplaces, and client relationships either support or hinder their craft and well-being.

As a creative, I was curious about their endeavor and reached out to ask a few questions. Our conversation follows (edited slightly for length and clarity).

As the foundation for this survey, what does a sustainable creative career mean to you?

Fe Amanarante (FA): A sustainable career— especially a sustainable creative career, in my case—is a career with longevity. An effort that can be sustained over a prolonged period, as we work for many years and many hours every week. If the pace at which I produce work doesn’t prevent me from living through other aspects of my life, I consider that a sustainable career. When considering the sustainability of my creative career, I see my creativity as a resource that can both propel and be propelled by other aspects of my life, creating integration between my work and my life (at a pace and intensity I can sustain). Brandi and I see this sustained pace as one that has ups and downs (obviously, we have busy times) but also offers space to recover and recharge.

Brandi Parker (BP): I echo Fe. I believe that sustainability means something that fits into your life holistically: a career that works for you versus something solely for someone else (e.g., your employer). In creative careers, we must take extra care to preserve our humanity, our unique, sole source of creativity. It’s easy to overwork and over-deliver on your creativity because our culture trains us not to see or believe its limits. But limits are real, and we’re talking about that on ZWC.

It’s easy to overwork and over-deliver on your creativity because our culture trains us not to see or believe its limits. But limits are real, and we’re talking about it.
—Brandi Parker

What are the most significant challenges you’ve faced as a creative professional in today’s industry? How have these challenges shaped your approach to your work?

FA: Some of the most significant challenges I’ve faced have to do with the depletion of the key resources creativity requires. As a creative professional, I tried many times to “hack” the system to continue to work without one or more of these resources. This led to burnout every time. There is no hack: nobody is limitless in their energy or time.

There’s also a lack of truth-telling as the basis of communication between team members, which comes in many shapes: when we obscure our real opinions, when we don’t believe there’s a safe space for honest dialogue, and when we withdraw from real connection.

Also problematic are the obstacles to our ability to experiment and find flow in the work in today’s fragmented and overstimulating work environment. Finally, that we revere creativity as “magic” prevents us from talking about being a creative professional in objective terms. Creativity isn’t abstract. Our bodies need certain conditions to produce creative thinking. Our teams are made of interdependent relationships between creatives and clients, all of which need those same conditions to truly create anything—a connection between concepts, a thought, an idea.

That we revere creativity as “magic” prevents us from talking about being a creative professional in objective terms.
—Fe Amarante

BP: Among the biggest challenges I’ve faced are overpromising myself and understanding my creative limits. Even once I’ve recognized them, I’ve found it difficult to acknowledge that these are not character flaws and my power to demand a break or to say “no.” Especially as a junior creative. At the beginning of our careers, we’re told we must “do our time” to get to a reasonable work scenario versus coming up with the idea that we all deserve “reasonable” all the time.

Beyond these listed, I’d have to say that I have realized that exercising my right to say no includes saying no to certain projects or clients. And I don’t mean because you don’t like them or don’t want to do the work, but because they go against your ethics or moral compass. Early on in my career, I’d worked with a big tobacco client at an agency. Further into my career, I worked at an agency that actually gave us a choice to work on that account. This was my first moment of awakening that this was possible— that we could draw our lines in the sand. Sometimes, your line might mean the risk of losing your job, but perhaps that wasn’t your job anyway. Some of the biggest teachers in my career were the challenges, and I’m more confident because of them.

Considering the current landscape of leapfrogging technology and remote/hybrid work, how do you see these trends influencing the future of creativity as a resource, and what is their impact on career sustainability as you define it?

FA: There is no shortage of tools, technology, and resources available for creatives to make truly anything, physically and digitally. Yet, our biggest issues are still related to our human-to-human interactions and connections. The future of creativity, in my humble opinion, isn’t dependent on the trends and tools we have and will continue to create. The future of creativity depends on our ability to collectively address the conditions creativity requires to exist amongst the humans doing it for a living and the humans needing it to solve a problem. The neck-breaking speed with which we see new tech and new tools means we’re inundated with a bazillion high-tech pencils—more tools are available to us than we know what to do with. In the midst of the overwhelm, we forget that these tools are not here to fix or replace the much-needed human-to-human interactions and connections that create the conditions in which creativity can be nurtured and applied.

BP: The best part (for me) has been my ability to move home to my rural hometown, be closer to family, and still keep the career I’ve been working on for over two decades. The biggest benefit I see is the potential for replenishing the country’s rural areas with diverse people and skills who can survive because the future of work doesn’t depend on a place.

Historically, this has been a huge barrier to small-town survival—being dependent on young folks returning to keep the town alive, with limited opportunities offered for said young folk. For young creatives, living somewhere with a less expensive cost of living is only mutually beneficial. On one hand, remote work presents a big challenge to creatives and the nature of collaboration. On the other hand, it forces us to be “creative” in how we collab, and it increases the value of human-to-human contact immensely, which bodes well for making special arrangements and opportunities to meet face-to-face. Likewise, it also means that if you can make the effort to meet in person, it’s appreciated even more. Pre-pandemic, I believe we were approaching an era of taking face-to-face for granted. I can remember (more than once) traveling cross-country and back within 24 hours for a single, one-hour meeting. The energy! The carbon footprint! Holy shit, what a goddamn waste. This would be a highly unlikely scenario today, and we, as an industry, desperately needed that change. I think that’s a great example of prioritizing humanity and the Earth.

What do you believe are the essential elements for fostering a sustainable creative career? Have you observed any practices that contribute positively or negatively to this goal?

FA: Between giant holding companies with hundreds or thousands of creative firms under them and large companies with in-house creative functions, creative professionals often see shifts and changes coming at the scale these players can command, for better or worse. Contributing negatively to the development of a sustainable creative career are the multi-layered hierarchy levels occupied by creative professionals who grew up—literally and metaphorically—within an industry that has praised overwork and the neglect of one’s personal needs in exchange for a promise of career progression and success. Of course, not all large organizations are bad, and not all small and independent firms are good; it’s not black & white, but we cannot deny the power large organizations hold to drive an agenda of change if they desire. There is a lot of positive movement in independent creative professionals and firms showing up with a more human dialogue that sounds inspiring but needs to be matched with practices that truly deliver it as a new way of working for the people involved. With Experimenta, my very small and young creative consultancy, I’m proposing a different approach that expands the design thinking definition of human-centricity to include the humans working on the creative challenge at hand, with practices behind it delivering on it beyond a buzzword or a “proprietary process.” And Brandi and I connected so strongly over the concept that the resources behind our humanity are as finite as the resources we see on Earth, and sustainability starts right there.

We cannot deny the power large organizations hold to drive an agenda of change if they desire.
—Fe Amarante

BP: Something I always talk about in the broad subject of environmental sustainability is the concept of a “multidisciplinary and humane” approach. I like to focus on the concepts of non-linear processes, multidimensional teams, and human-centric solutioning (a few of the points that Fe and I came together on initially). If you look at nature, few things we describe as organic can also be associated with straight lines— looking at root systems, our neurons, or veins in a leaf— they all branch out or reconnect back or branch out many times. These concepts are also directly applicable to our lives and our embarking on our careers. Don’t feel like you have a singular, linear path from education to work, or that you should only have one career, or that it be singularly focused, or that you have one set of skills in your repertoire that you can focus on at a time. There are so many benefits to combining seemingly unrelated skills or interests! Why? You’ll never be so specialized that you feel like you can’t transfer to a different job, and you’ll always have ways of reinventing or evolving your role so that you never stagnate. These are the things that support a sustainable creative career beyond relying on your employer, client, or colleagues to play the supportive role.

There are so many benefits to combining seemingly unrelated skills or interests! Why? You’ll never be so specialized that you feel like you can’t transfer to a different job, and you’ll always have ways of reinventing or evolving your role so that you never stagnate.
—Brandi Parker

What changes to the creative industry could enhance the overall experience for creative professionals? How do you see your survey contributing to this evolution?

FA: If every creative leader in every in-house, agency, and independent team learned more about what humans actually need to engage in authentic creativity (and not just perform on a stage of “shoulds”), the future could be so bright. We see a lot of possibilities, given that conversations and concepts around mental health have become more common and that young creatives coming into the industry are demanding a different attitude from their peers and bosses. As a millennial, I’ve said a few times to Gen Z peers, “It’s not that you’re the first generation to want better work conditions; it’s that you’re the first generation being clear and vocal about it consistently.”

Brandi and I have received a huge amount of feedback since we started our podcast, and this gives me so much hope that people crave this discussion. I’m really grateful for what I was able to do in my career, but my physical and mental health suffered greatly from the depletion because nobody was talking about these things.

With the results of this survey, we hope to give everyone datapoints and information to de-mystify what creative professionals need to do this whole creativity thing for a living. Making this better means the work gets better, clients get better work for what they’re paying for, and the humans working on it can do more without running out of juice, like so many of us did, so often, as if it was the only way through this career. It’s beyond time for a new standard. We hope that Zero Waste Creatives becomes a piece in the giant puzzle of making a difference.

BP: Let yourself find that “aha!” moment and run with it— this is advice for the entire industry. And, to get to ‘aha,’ I believe you have to start approaching things differently. For me, it’s been about developing all the ways that seemingly disconnected things—like creative burnout and wasted earthly resources—are actually very connected. Understanding this led me to seek out experts from a much broader set of industries I needed to learn from to define my flavor of sustainability. And, as a result of all of this, my creative tank is continually refueled. Exercising creativity with challenges and unexpected connections can be regenerative. With our abundance of accessible information, AI, the speed of tech, etc., it’s easy to paint doomsday consequences for these things, overlooking the possible benefits— like the incredible speeds at which we can draw connections, learn about specialized subjects, and combine these forces for good.

As a young creative, I always focused on the idea that creativity’s output was solely about something original that you could produce in some tangible way, versus what I know now, which is the idea that creativity is a part of problem-solving, thinking, and way of moving through the world. By creating this survey, Fe and I want to get at the heart of what people are experiencing and how they are really doing. Creatives were a great place to start because Fe and I know them best. Through greater understanding of the results, we can apply our own lived experiences, wisdom, and creativity toward changing the industry and peoples’ experiences in it. Which is a fancy way of saying, “forcing the industry to do things differently in the most organic way we can imagine.”

Let your creative voice be heard! Take part in the ZWC’s annual Creative Voices Heard survey. The survey is open until August 12 and results will be shared this fall.

PRINT will start syndicating the Zero Waste Creatives podcast in our PRINTCast Studio soon, but in the meantime, check it out here.

The post Zero Waste Creatives on a Mission to Advocate for Sustainable Creative Careers appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

WSJ, in partnership with the renowned agency Mother (New York & London), has launched an innovative brand platform “It’s Your Business.” This initiative reflects WSJ’s commitment to delivering in-depth business journalism that not only informs but also impacts the world, playing a vital role in people’s everyday lives.

“Business impacts everyone–whether they know it or not–and more people than ever are turning to The Journal to help them navigate the challenges thrown their way. “It’s Your Business” not only underpins our position as the trusted source for business news and information but it also appeals to new, untapped audiences and broadens awareness of who we are and what we do best.”

Sherry Weiss, Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal Chief Marketing Officer

Throughout the month, WSJ rolled out a series of contextual advertisements across New York City, making “It’s Your Business” a visible part of the urban landscape. These ads have appeared in diverse and unexpected locations, such as EV charger points, golf courses, gas pumps, delis, and even hot dog stands. This strategic placement illustrates the omnipresence of business in daily life, reinforcing the idea that wherever you go, business matters.

The campaign showcases a wide range of articles, each highlighting a different facet of WSJ’s comprehensive coverage. From in-depth pieces on renters’ rights and the growing trend of sleep divorce to explorations of everyday phenomena like your morning coffee, the Journal’s stories cater to their broad audience. This diverse range of topics demonstrates that business news isn’t just for industry insiders but is relevant and valuable to everyone.

By emphasizing “It’s Your Business,” WSJ aims to connect with readers more deeply, showcasing how its reporting covers everything from personal finance to lifestyle choices, making business journalism accessible and engaging for everyone.

Through its collaboration with Mother and a strategic campaign across New York City, WSJ is showing that business news is essential to everyone’s daily life. Whether in the boardroom or at the local coffee shop, WSJ’s wide-ranging coverage highlights its ongoing relevance and importance in today’s world—a bold move that reshapes how we see business journalism.

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The most damaging phrase in the language is: ‘We’ve always done it this way!’ A system cannot evolve if it cannot question its parts and their relationships.”

I recently came across closed-bottle terrariums, and I’m fascinated by how they work. If you’re unfamiliar, picture a ship in a bottle, except it’s not a ship; it’s a small garden, and the bottle is closed up tight — nothing gets in or out (except light). When you look at them, they look more like miniature worlds, thriving in isolation, as self-sustaining ecosystems encased in glass. Somehow, the complex systems and interdependencies between the living and inert elements within maintain a delicate balance to support life without external intervention.

The oldest known closed-bottle terrarium is a marvel created by a British electrical engineer named David Latimer. On Easter Sunday 1960, Latimer added some compost and carefully planted a seedling in a large glass bottle; he poured in about a quarter pint of water and sealed it shut. He has only opened the bottle once, in 1972, to give his terrarium another small drink of water. Over the decades, his enclosed garden has continued flourishing, with the plant growing, photosynthesizing, and recycling nutrients within its glass confines. It’s a testament to the resilience and power of closed-loop systems.

How do these closed terrariums work? At its core, a closed-bottle terrarium is a microcosm of our larger ecosystem. It relies on balanced flows of light, water, and air — all sealed within its glass walls. Light is the energy that enables the plant to photosynthesize, producing oxygen and glucose from carbon dioxide and water. The plant, in turn, releases water vapor, which condenses on the walls of the container and trickles back into the soil, like a miniature water cycle. Microorganisms in the soil decompose dead organic material, releasing nutrients back into the soil and generating carbon dioxide, which the plant can reuse. This continuous cycle and interplay of elements and systems is what keeps the terrarium alive.

Systems

The brilliance of Latimer’s 64-year-old closed-bottle terrarium lies not just in its longevity but in its interrelated systems. It illustrates how components within a system interact in complex, interdependent ways to maintain balance and sustainability. Each element of the terrarium plays a critical role, and their interactions ensure the system’s health and longevity.

Donella Meadows, the environmental scientist and expert on systems thinking, defined a system as “a set of related components that work together in a particular environment to perform whatever functions are required to achieve the system’s objective.” A system is a set of parts that interact with each other to function as a whole and interact with the environment.

Our lives consist of countless systems. For how small it is, a closed-bottle terrarium is a very complex system. Let’s look at a simpler one to better understand how systems work: Meadow’s classic example of your home heating system. In her book Thinking in Systems, A Primer, Meadows explains systems as relationships between stocks and flows.

Stocks represent the elements within a system that you can measure at any given time. They are the accumulations of resources or capabilities within the system. Examples of stocks can include the amount of water in a reservoir, the number of people in a company, the money in a bank account, or even the amount of trust within a community. Stocks change over time through the flows that feed into or drain out of them.

Flows, therefore, are the rates at which stocks change. These can be inputs into the stock (inflows) or outputs from the stock (outflows). Flows are the activities or processes that increase or decrease the stock. For instance, in the case of a water reservoir, inflows might include rainwater or rivers flowing into the reservoir, while outflows might consist of water being drawn for agricultural use or evaporating into the air.

In a home heating system, the stock is the room temperature or the amount of heat in the room measured by degrees Fahrenheit. There are two flows: an inflow of heat from the furnace and an outflow of heat leaving the room. What regulates those flows and our stock of heat is a feedback loop.

The interplay between stocks and flows can create feedback loops where the state of the stock affects the flow rates, which in turn affects the stock. Here, the feedback loop characterizes the discrepancy between the desired and actual temperature. As heat flows out of the room, the temperature falls; the thermostat measures that discrepancy and turns on the furnace to inflow more heat. The system continues to keep the room temperature balanced at your desired state. Note that changes in flows may not instantly affect the stocks due to delays in the system, which can lead to oscillations or delays in responses that require making effective management decisions. For this example, imagine if the thermostat could only accurately sample the room temperature every 6 hours. To keep the stock of heat stable, additional management would be required to predict and administer the flow of heat from the furnace.

Systems can be as simple as a room, a furnace, and a thermostat; or as complex as a business, with all its components, interconnections, functions, and purposes. Understanding how systems work can unlock opportunities and a ton of value for companies and customers.

Thinking in Systems

Systems thinking is an approach to creative problem-solving that focuses on how a system’s constituent parts connect, relate, and nest within the context of larger systems. Modern businesses operate in environments that are increasingly complex and interconnected. Systems thinking helps business designers understand and navigate this complexity by seeing the whole picture, including the various interdependencies and the potential for emergent behavior that isn’t predictable from looking at the parts alone. Leaders can make more informed decisions by understanding the relationships and feedback loops within and outside the organization.

Systems thinking enables the identification of leverage points where strategic interventions can lead to significant positive changes or avoid unintended consequences. Seeing the business as a system can foster innovation by revealing opportunities for synergy between different parts of the organization or with external partners. It encourages looking beyond traditional boundaries to find new ways to create value.

Let’s use a simple business example before widening our aperture: a lemonade stand. A lemonade stand is a system — its stocks include supplies (measured in number of lemons and pound of sugar), lemonade inventory (measured in fluid ounces of lemonade ready to sell), and cash (measured in dollars). There are also flows: purchasing uses cash to increase the stock of supplies; production, when we make lemonade, we decrease the amount of supplies and increase the amount of inventory; and sales reduce the amount of inventory and increase the amount of cash.

Our customers are also systems — living, breathing, moving systems. People have so many stocks and flows that there isn’t enough space in this newsletter to list them, so for the purposes of our example, let’s skip the details and just say humans have a stock of thirst, a stock of cash, and a stock of lemonade. Their purchase flow decreases their cash but increases their own stock of lemonade (usually one glass) and decreases their stock of thirst (which is a good thing).

Even this seemingly straightforward business has feedback loops and external factors that influence the system. There’s a quality feedback loop: the quality of lemonade could affect demand and sales. There’s also a customer demand feedback loop that influences future spending on supplies and how much lemonade the stand should produce. Externally, weather plays a part; a hot, sunny day could dramatically increase sales, while a cold, rainy day could push them to zero.

All these system elements interact to achieve various purposes—for the lemonade stand owner, they generate profit, and for the customer, they quench their thirst. For the business designer, seeing the system in its totality, including the relationship between elements, allows us to design these interconnections, optimizing them for our goals and purposes.

Yes, as designers, we must design individual touchpoints; for example, we could hone our product design by getting our lemonade recipe just right. We can also design how things connect, like a flow — our production system — to ensure we’re efficiently using our supplies to make that product. We can design how we track and respond to demand — if sales are way up on hot days, we could design a pricing strategy and test it; perhaps we could raise the price per cup dynamically based on the weather. Designing the business means designing the systems that create, distribute, and capture value.

Business Systems

As the lemonade stand example shows, we can conceptualize a business as a complex system comprised of multiple interconnected components like people, resources, cash, and culture. Flows, like our lemonade stand, include the flow of money through purchasing, sales, profits, costs, and re-investment; the flow of information through communication; and the flows of materials and activities defined by key production and distribution processes the company defines to create and deliver value.

These elements interact dynamically with one another and with external environmental factors such as market conditions, economic cycles, technological advances, and social and political forces, influencing the business’s ability to adapt, learn, and ultimately thrive. Feedback loops play an important role in bridging the business and the environment—continuous feedback from the market, customers, and internal processes informs decision-making and helps refine strategies and operations.

While the primary goal of most businesses is to generate profit and create value for stakeholders, businesses often pursue broader objectives that may include sustainability, social responsibility, and innovation. The effectiveness with which a company achieves these objectives largely depends on how well its internal components work in concert and respond to external pressures. Systems thinking enables business leaders to see beyond isolated parts of their organization, understanding how these parts connect and influence one another and the environment. This holistic view is crucial for strategic decision-making, allowing businesses to navigate complexities and devise solutions that are effective in the short term and sustainable in the long run. Let’s look at some examples.

Toyota Production System

The Toyota Production System (TPS) is a classic example of systems thinking applied successfully in business. Developed by Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan, TPS revolutionized automotive manufacturing, introducing principles and practices that enhanced efficiency, quality, and responsiveness.

During the post-World War II era, Toyota faced significant challenges, including limited resources, high production costs, and a small domestic car market. In the 1950s, a delegation of Toyota executives and engineers visited the United States to tour U.S. automakers’ factories to learn from the competition. What they saw did not impress them. Traditional mass production techniques were inefficient and wasteful, often yielding defects and low-quality goods. Moreover, the way American carmakers addressed their market — focused on high volume and low variety — was not viable for the challenges Toyota faced.

The group of Toyota leaders, including engineer Taiichi Ohno, also visited an American supermarket — a Piggly Wiggly, to be exact. During this time, supermarkets didn’t exist in Japan, and the team was curious — they didn’t expect to be inspired. They saw how the supermarket handled their inventory — Piggly Wiggly only reordered and restocked items once customers had made purchases (it sounds simple and obvious now, doesn’t it?). Back in Japan, Ohno, with the support of Eiji Toyoda, a member of Toyota’s founding family, applied the lessons of supermarket inventory management to how materials and parts flow into the manufacturing process only when and where they’re needed.

Key to the success of TPS was its holistic integration of these principles into a cohesive system. They could have analyzed each part of the manufacturing process and tried to optimize it in isolation, disconnected from the rest, but systems thinking enabled Toyota to see the production process as an interconnected whole rather than a series of separate segments — everything is connected — allowing them to identify and eliminate inefficiencies throughout the system.

Ohno and his team developed the critical component of the Toyota Production System: Just-In-Time (JIT), a methodology aimed at reducing the flow times within production as well as response times from suppliers and to customers. JIT helps in managing inventory levels effectively, ensuring that parts get ordered and received as needed in the production process. Feedback loops were also critical in TPS — workers on the production floor continuously fed information back into the system to help identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement. Toyota could adapt its processes dynamically, enhancing flexibility and responsiveness to changes in demand or production conditions.

Implementing TPS led to dramatic improvements in efficiency and product quality at Toyota. The system reduced costs by eliminating waste, improved flexibility in managing production variability, and enhanced customer satisfaction with higher-quality vehicles. Toyota is now the world’s largest automobile manufacturer, producing around 11 million vehicles annually with a 10.7% global market share. The success of TPS also influenced manufacturing processes worldwide, leading to its adaptation across diverse industries.

Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines, the U.S. airline known for its low-cost, high-efficiency model, has successfully utilized systems thinking to create a robust business model that sets it apart from competitors — even within the volatile airline industry, often plagued by economic downturns, fluctuating fuel prices, and intense competition.

Southwest Airlines started by offering low-cost, convenient air travel within Texas, directly challenging the conventional business models of existing carriers. Herb Kelleher, leveraging his legal background and entrepreneurial spirit, along with his co-founder Rollin King’s aviation experience, designed an airline model that differed fundamentally from the traditional hub-and-spoke systems used by other airlines.

Kelleher and King applied systems thinking by viewing the airline as an interconnected system where each component affects and is affected by others. One of Southwest’s earliest and most significant decisions was to operate a single aircraft model, the Boeing 737 — this choice streamlined maintenance, training, and scheduling. By reducing the complexity associated with handling multiple types of aircraft, Southwest could focus on quick turnarounds and maintain high aircraft utilization rates.

Contrary to the popular hub-and-spoke model, Southwest adopted a point-to-point routing system — literally designing how its planes flow across the country. This strategic decision minimized the chances of flight delays and lowered transit times, greatly enhancing customer satisfaction and operational reliability. It also allowed Southwest to maximize the productivity of its fleet, as planes spent more time flying routes and less time waiting on the ground.

Feedback is also highly utilized by the airline. For instance, pilot and crew feedback enhances flight operations and scheduling. Customer feedback directly influences service offerings and marketing strategies, ensuring that the airline remains responsive to passenger needs. By understanding and managing the airline as a cohesive system, Southwest has been able to innovate its business model, streamline operations, and maintain a strong corporate culture.

U.K. Agricultural Policy

The U.K.’s agricultural policy has undergone significant changes, particularly following its exit from the European Union. These changes necessitated reevaluating policies governing agriculture, focusing on sustainability, efficiency, and competitiveness in the global market. The complexity of agricultural systems, influenced by environmental factors, economic pressures, and social expectations, required a comprehensive approach.

The primary challenge was to design a policy framework that could address multiple, often conflicting, objectives such as enhancing food security, reducing environmental impacts, supporting rural economies, and complying with new trade regulations post-Brexit.

The U.K. government adopted systems thinking to holistically address the intricate dynamics of agricultural policy — starting with understanding different perspectives and the relationships between various system components. The government initiated broad consultations with farmers, environmental groups, industry representatives, and scientists to gather diverse insights into the agricultural system. Recognizing that changes in one part of the agricultural system could have wide-ranging effects on others, the policy aimed to integrate goals related to productivity, environmental sustainability, and economic viability — to best balance trade-offs and synergize efforts across different sectors.

The cornerstone of the new policy, outlined in the Agriculture Act of 2020, was an approach called Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS), which focuses on paying farmers for “public goods” such as environmental improvements and conversation efforts, including actions to improve soil health, water quality, and biodiversity. To comply with the policy and receive incentive-based payments, farmers have begun implementing more environmentally friendly practices, such as reduced pesticide use, cover cropping, improved water management, and better living conditions for farm animals.

The new policy framework also incorporated ongoing monitoring and feedback mechanisms, allowing adjustments based on outcomes and the latest information. This adaptive management approach was crucial in a sector heavily impacted by external factors like weather conditions and global market prices.

Business Benefits of Systems Thinking

Systems thinking offers profound benefits to businesses — organizations who embrace this holistic approach can realize several key advantages:

1. Enhanced Problem Solving: Systems thinking enables businesses to see beyond surface-level issues and understand the underlying complexities of challenges. This deeper insight leads to more innovative, effective, and sustainable solutions that drive competitive advantage rather than temporary fixes that fail to address the root causes of problems.
2. Increased Efficiency: Companies can identify inefficiencies and eliminate waste across processes by analyzing how different parts of a system interact — leading to smoother operations, reduced costs, and better resource management, ultimately enhancing overall productivity.
3. Improved Adaptability: Adaptability is crucial in today’s rapidly changing business environment. Systems thinking fosters an environment of continuous learning and feedback, which equips businesses to respond dynamically to market shifts, technological innovations, and evolving consumer preferences.
4. Stronger Strategic Planning: Systems thinking provides a framework for understanding the immediate effects of decisions and their longer-term impacts on all parts of the organization and its external environment — supporting more robust strategic planning and risk management.
5. Enhanced Stakeholder Relationships: Systems thinking also helps businesses understand and prioritize the needs and expectations of various stakeholders, including customers, employees, and the community — improving customer satisfaction and employee engagement and strengthening the business’s reputation and long-term viability.

How to Think in Systems

Everything is connected to everything else. Time flows, cash flows, and so do many other things. When we think in systems, we see how outcomes emerge from relationships and interactions — like how a tiny seedling in a bottle turns into a beautiful array of self-sustaining life. Aside from creating your own closed-bottle terrarium at home (which honestly sounds like a lot of fun to me), here’s how you can get started thinking in systems:

1. Understand the Big Picture: Begin by stepping back to view the entire system rather than just its parts. Recognize how various elements within the organization and its external environment are connected. This holistic perspective helps identify how changes in one area can impact others.
2. Map the System: Use visual tools like flowcharts or system maps (like how we mapped the home heating system and lemonade stand) to illustrate the relationships between different components of the business. You can map processes, resources, information flows, and feedback loops. Visual representations help clarify complex interdependencies and can be a powerful tool for understanding, discussing, and iterating systems.
3. Identify Feedback Loops: Look for areas where actions lead to reactions that, in turn, influence further actions. Understanding both positive and negative feedback loops within your system can help you manage growth and stability more effectively.
4. Think in Scenarios: Since systems are dynamic and influenced by external variables, thinking in scenarios is beneficial. Consider different potential outcomes based on varying conditions and how they might affect the system. This approach can help anticipate challenges and identify where leverage points might exist that can drive significant impact.
5. Focus on Relationships, Not Just Elements: In systems thinking, the relationships between elements often hold more value than the individual parts themselves. Pay attention to how elements interact, communicate, and influence each other, and consider how you can design these interactions to improve the system.
6. Embrace Iteration and Adaptability: Systems thinking is not a one-time effort but a continuous process of improvement. Embrace an iterative approach of prototyping ideas, testing changes, learning from them, and refining your system continuously.

By incorporating these steps into their strategic and operational thinking, business designers can leverage systems thinking to create more sustainable, efficient, and adaptive organizations. Thinking in business systems will enhance internal processes and customer engagement and create long-term success and innovation.

Sam Aquillano is an entrepreneur, design leader, writer, and founder of Design Museum Everywhere. This post was originally published in Sam’s twice-monthly newsletter for the creative-business-curious, Business Design School. Check out Sam’s book, Adventures in Disruption: How to Start, Survive, and Succeed as a Creative Entrepreneur.

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Malinic, who leads the London-based Brand Nu Studio and Brand Nu Books, has dedicated over two decades to helping fellow creatives forge successful paths. His previous releases, such as Book of Branding and Book of Ideas, have received widespread acclaim. They are essential resources for entrepreneurs, designers, and brand creators.

Creativity For Sale is a comprehensive guide for artists, writers, designers, and other creatives who want to ignite successful careers and businesses. It offers practical strategies for building and amplifying personal brands and provides powerful tools for meaningful growth.

On the other hand, Mindful Creative offers a roadmap for navigating the peaks and troughs of creative life, career, and business. It encourages readers to reflect on building positive habits and focusing on mindfulness. Through sharing his hard-learned lessons, Malinic provides valuable insights that have transformed his own career and life.

In line with his commitment to sustainability, both books are printed by Park Communications in London, using 100% offshore wind electricity from UK sources. The production process emphasizes environmental responsibility, utilizing vegetable oil-based inks, recycling 95% of press chemicals, and achieving an average recycling rate of 99% for associated waste. The paper is sourced from well-managed, FSC®-certified forests, ensuring the books are certified climate-neutral print products with calculated and offset carbon emissions.

Enthralled with the idea of injecting mindfulness into hectic creative pursuits and navigating chaotic agency life, Radim and I discussed what it means to be a mindful creative and how to build out a toolkit for the 21st-century designer. Our conversation, edited for clarity and length, is below.

I love that both new titles aim to help creatives find success in their career while also avoiding burnout. What I found particularly interesting in Mindful Creative was about mood and flow states. What did you observe in the industry and perhaps your career that compelled you to write about this topic?

These two books are the books that I wish existed 20 years ago when I was starting out. We start our creative careers because we want to do the thing, and we don’t necessarily think about what else we must do to help ourselves actually survive it. It’s like wanting to be a runner; if you go running 5K, 10K, 15K every day, you’re going to start hurting because you need to do all sorts of other things to help you be better at running.

Creativity is meant to be a beautiful topic that makes us feel something and gives us our livelihood. The creative industry can have such a narrow focus that only when things go bad do we start thinking, well, why us? Why now?

I think there is a reason why we sometimes need to burn out to find where the happy middle is. As much as we want creativity to be 100% amazing all the time, it will never be because we are not 100% all the time. It’s understanding how to be okay when we’re not okay and how to look out for others when they’re not okay.

We’ve chosen creativity as our livelihood and profession. And it has so many variables. We must grow, learn, and develop resilience. And we don’t talk about it enough.

In our last conversation, you brought up the idea of facilitating a 21st-century designer toolkit, hoping that your recent books could be part of that toolkit. What tools do 21st-century designers need and why? How does this differ from the needs of the 20th-century designer?

When you look back, there was a lot of focus on being skilled in a certain way to deliver the work. Companies like Adobe, for example, still focus on helping you to make the thing. 

Looking at the 20th-century toolkit, there were design education and software skills, but we missed the soft skills. Where would you put mental health or mindfulness into those layers?

A friend of mine summarized our creative work in the early 2000s by saying, it was get the work done or get the sack. The world was much more cutthroat, cynical, and driven for results.

From what I’ve experienced, people didn’t care if you had troubles or weren’t particularly well; it was “you’ve got an hour lunch break. This is the work that needs to be done. This is the job, go.”

It did not stimulate creativity or discussion. It only added to the percentage of people in our industry who are unhappy. When you look at the statistics, 55% of people in the creative industry are unhappy.

We’re meant to be the unicorns, with fairy dust and sunshine all the time, and it’s not. Why is that?

We try to adopt old ways of creative working and adapt them to new projects and generations, and nothing improves. As a society, everything is moving much faster, especially now, with more knowledge, understanding, and resources. Small tweaks can actually create big results, but most people don’t think about it.

I wrote Mindful Creative because I have lived every sort of creative life and career, from freelancing professional to running my own studio. What burned me out was the fact that I could work every hour of every day.

I reaped the benefits of a more connected, democratized world, which was amazing. But I had no definition of when to stop. For me, creativity was an untamed beast because you can work as long as you want. At the time when I was pushing myself so much, I had a commission for the Canadian launch of Bacardi Breezers. And I told myself, I will make this the most amazing work of my life. There was no need. I just needed to answer the brief and do my best work. I didn’t have to stay up for long hours, but the social media cocktail and the number of followers drove me.

The 20th century was much simpler. We had portfolio books; there weren’t personal websites. Creatives didn’t have to consider making reels. In the 21st century, we have created a much more content-rich and opportunity-rich world. There’s more work than ever before. But we’ve added so many layers that it’s really hard to understand how to operate through those layers.

How do you navigate everything that’s around you? How do you cherry-pick what’s good for you or what can be good for you? And how do you stay true to yourself?

And that is hard to do, especially when you have an immature mind because you feel like you’re falling behind. So many things in our daily lives make us feel inadequate because we’re questioning, am I good enough creatively? Have I got the right idea? Am I doing enough? Am I promoting enough? Do I have enough likes?

Some people pretend that they’re okay and that they’re flashy and going somewhere. But if you don’t have a signposted purpose of where you want to be with your career, then you will do all those things I did 10 or 15 years ago. Going after every platform, every like, every follower, every piece of work, every client, everything.

When I look back, I can’t remember, apart from the Bacardi Breezer campaign, what I did 15 years ago. And I can’t pinpoint why I was working so much that I broke myself. There are no gold medals to win. I was working for something, towards some big picture, but I didn’t have to do all of that.

I needed to discover why I was doing certain things because the work was just a tool. The work enabled workaholic behaviors. We hide in our work behind instant gratification. We take on more because it pushes the pain away and it pushes our reality away.

Our creative lives were simpler before the Internet and social media. Now, we must be like an octopus with eight limbs trying to juggle many things. A 21st-century designer toolkit also implies adaptability to rapidly evolving technologies and trends. How do you stay current with tools and techniques while fostering balance to avoid burnout?

We can do many more things we couldn’t do in the past. I remember having a fantastic conversation with someone who used to be an illustrator for Gucci. His career sounded amazing, but having a linear career is rarer today. I enjoy that I could have reinvented my career five or six times in the last 20 to 25 years. My general curiosity has always led me to ask, what’s next? What’s that? What’s this?

Because the world is so multi-layered, you can do all these incredible things. And that was impossible before, you know? Today, if you have a problem, you can find a way to solve it yourself.

Compared to working for others, running your own show is much more demanding but so much more enriching when you find your own solutions.

Let’s say I’m launching a new coffee company. There are resources at my fingertips to learn processes from stock fulfillment to building creative assets. But possibilities and more opportunities come at a price. The world is heavier than ever before. Our brains have to catch up. What was available to us ten years ago differed from five years, three years, even a year ago. That is really fast. And we have yet to process some of the stuff we did 20 years ago, let alone, you know, what’s happening now.

With emerging technologies now, especially AI or blockchain, do you see these tools as means to empower designers to create more sustainably? Or, like you mentioned, does this add to the world’s heaviness?

It comes from within. Let’s say you are good at tennis. You have a good serve. You know how to hit that sweet spot every time. But to get to that point, you need time to develop. In creativity, you can be on the pitch just because you’ve got the right software, even if you don’t have years of development. Once you’ve had some practice, the heaviness of life comes from every angle.

Years of experience teach us how to deal with the other side of everything we wish for. We don’t always talk about it, but there is a dark side to creativity, entrepreneurship, freelancing, or running a studio. We need to talk about both sides so that people can prepare for all kinds of situations.

When it comes to new tools like AI, we panic because it’s not a piece of shit tool anymore. We ask ourselves, is it going to hurt my business? Because I have grown my roots and gone through many experiences, I don’t get so worked up about potential threats.

So, consider which part of AI is a threat to your business. There are parts of AI that can replace me in various ways. But can it really? You need someone to operate the AI. It’s human-enabled to give you a result. We’ve had AI in our lives for a while. AI takes a few bits and bobs and creates a collage from it or another solution. We’ve been doing this in Photoshop for the last 30 years.

When photography came out, painters were upset. You no longer have to paint the landscape because you can take a picture. So the painters moved on to Cubism. AI gives us a challenge and a kick up the ass to do better. It has given us this sort of steroid, hyper, turbo, creative calculator that you can use to see what you can do with it, you know?

If you don’t have a mindful, emotionally mature foundation, that’s when you feel a threat from something like AI. When it comes to high-end creativity, the market still and will always appreciate experts, talent, specialists, and professionals.

It’s the idea of using AI in the ways we need to. There are still photographers and painters. Both are equally valuable. There’s just a slight shift in how they are utilized.

I believe that AI is here to stay. We should think about how to use AI to our advantage because, like the tools you have in Photoshop, it can save you hours. It used to take me two or three hours to retouch an image, but with content-aware fill, it takes ten seconds. And it’s done really well—in fact, impressively.

It’s more about the functionality of our tools, rethinking ideas, or combining ideas we’ve always had.

We need to get it right for legal purposes and implications. It’s evolving too fast for our collective consciousness. Sometimes, technological advances that take time feel less ominous. But AI has been around for quite a long time; we just relabeled it (Grammarly is an example, and we’ve been fine using it as such). 

In the latest episode of the Creativity for Sale podcast, you talked with Mike Schnaidt, the creative director of Fast Company, discussing his career and the process of writing his book, Creative Endurance. My big takeaway was how vital endurance is to the creative process. It takes time to find your rhythm and make sense of your work. But staying committed and continuing to learn and grow is essential. How do you approach cultivating creative endurance in the digital age when flashing lights and alarms seem to be everywhere?

Endurance is something that we don’t necessarily think that we might need as creatives.

When you think of great designers—they are the ones that produce great work seemingly all the time—their careers are all about endurance. Paula Sher, for example.

When you see your peers doing amazing things, it’s easy to sit on your hands and say, yeah, I’m not going to do that. Creative pressure, or what I call ambitious anxiety, is prevalent; not only do you want to do more than you’ve ever been able to do, but you want to do them now.

Preferences become important when you realize it’s impossible to do it all. How do you choose what’s good for you? It takes time to find out because, at first, you want to do everything all the time.

Mike said it beautifully: It’s the understanding of how we can actually come back another day, how we can continue to move forward. 

I had to follow the advice of my books and simplify because I was running a successful studio, but it was making me unhappy because I couldn’t do all of it. I couldn’t be the brain for another three or four people every day, plus be a dad to my family and try to write books. I wasn’t necessarily looking after myself. So, it was about simplifying.

It’s taken all those iterations of my life and creativity to make every mistake and realize that I’m not the only person doing this. Whatever you do, someone else has done it before. It’s about being honest about everything that we do.

Aside from allowing yourself a couple of decades to figure this out, what advice do you have for creatives just starting their careers to cultivate resilience and endurance in their creative practice?

Make a plan about how you will look after yourself and build your personal and creative toolkits. Creatives around my age never made that a priority. Ask yourself: What do I do that stops me from greatness?

What makes you unique? Everyone has a creative journey. What is your creative and personal foundation? There’s no single correct answer to this. It’s about trying to be less of everything and focusing on your creativity, not on pleasing the algorithm. 

Looking after your soul will help you lessen the need to connect with hundreds and thousands of people. Focusing on your circle of friends or clients will get you further because you’re working with people who actually understand you and know how you communicate.

Imagery courtesy of Radim Malinic and Luke Cleland.

The post Empowering Creatives With a 21st-century Designer Toolkit appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Our industry is in a constant state of flux, and so are we as creative leaders, firm owners, and employees. Our priorities regarding what “work” means to us and what we want from our job, role, and the firms we lead are shifting, and as a result, we need to re-prioritize our thinking and expectations regarding how our organizations are managed and structured, how and who we hire, and what we want from our team and leaders.

Shifting Priorities

We need to evolve the ways we think about our organizational models, decisions, and strategies as a result of shifting demands and expectations of our staff and the leaders/principals of creative organizations:

For staff and candidates:

What defines happiness and even a healthy work-life balance has changed. For many, “work” is no longer a passion or a priority. Employees and candidates want and expect a flexible, transparent, supportive workplace culture that complements their robust and healthy personal lives. They are seeking out jobs that they enjoy and workplaces where they are valued and supported professionally and personally so that, at the end of the day, they can truly “leave” work at work.

“Manufactured culture will always seem forced, which is gross. It has to come organically, with meaningful efforts toward shared experiences.”

Johnny Selman, Principal & Executive Creative Director at Selman

Staff are burned out by the intensity of their work, what they are working on and doing at any given moment, and when they are being pulled in many directions at once. The combination of too many meetings, communication platforms, stopping and starting between projects, etc., results in staff not having dedicated time to focus on their tasks, being stressed and overwhelmed, and, ultimately, working less productively.

For leaders and principals:

Leaders are also shifting their priorities around work and their personal lives, striving to take more time off by building a team and business that will survive and even thrive without their presence.

They are realizing they no longer should (nor want to be) all things to all people, and they, too, are burned out. They are looking to build a team that supports them at a higher level and takes true ownership and responsibility for their tasks and responsibilities.

And, to help support them with these new priorities, they need and often expect everyone on their team to be “unicorns” that can:

• Be both big-picture thinkers and detailed-driven
• Work across many different mediums (branding, digital, print, experiential) and platforms
• Work both independently and collaboratively
• Value and adhere to budgets and schedules and manage their own projects and clients

New and Evolving Strategies

These shifting priorities require us to rethink many of our tried-and-true organizational strategies:

Think about the future:

We must think more deeply and strategically about our ideal organizational structure from a fresh perspective (i.e., not only considering who we currently have on our team). We can start by answering: Who are we now and who do we want to be in the future? Then, and only then, will we make effective hiring and management decisions. We can no longer build a team solely based on the current and/or short-term need or latest “fire” that must be extinguished, but what is best for our organization’s future growth and success in terms of who we are, who we work with, what services we provide, what our future growth looks like, and what culture and team we need to support this vision.

Be thoughtful and patient when hiring:

We should be more deliberate in the hiring process. Instead of hiring reactively (e.g., we need someone now), we should, as mentioned, be more strategic about the growth of our firm, who we’re bringing onto our team, and when. Instead of hiring someone only because they work[ed] for some big-name firm, we fell in love with them/their work, they were recommended to us, etc., we should hire someone because they fill a role that aligns with our firm’s current and future needs. The best candidates often take months to find!

• “We made a change two years ago and put together hiring committees for each role and included folks from different disciplines to be a part of the different rounds of interviews. 4-5 people typically. It allows us to get better perspectives and has led to overall higher quality hiring selections.” – Craig Johnson, President & Co-founder at Matchstic
• “We follow the three simple virtues outlined in Patrick Lencioni’s book ‘The Ideal Team Player.’ He states that any person who is humble, hungry, and people smart is your hire. Forget depth of experience and pedigree. We agree. Now, it’s not easy to determine this in just a few interviews. We’ve gotten good at it over the years, as well as simply attracting people with these traits. It’s a winning formula.” – Bill Kenney, Partner & Chief Executive Officer at Focus Lab

Be clear and transparent about roles and responsibilities:

We must have clearly defined job descriptions so that we have a clear alignment on expectations for each role. Job descriptions should include details on everything about the role—what they do, and the level of involvement (e.g., develop, contribute to, lead, approve, manage), etc.—across all areas of the business. To supplement job descriptions, you should also have an “accountability matrix,” which compares each role on your team, side by side, and aligns as well as clarifies areas such as:

• Salary levels/bands
• Expected level of skills and qualifications in particular areas
• Who do they manage and mentor, and in what areas
• Who they report to
• Primary and secondary responsibilities
• Attributes and soft skills required
• Approximate percentage of time and related responsibilities each role will be accountable for in various non-billable and billable areas of the organization

This is a great tool to use when employees want to be promoted and/or given a raise, as it shows how each role is different (and similar) from the others and what is needed and expected to move from one role to the next.

“We brought on a People/Creative Operations professional who has established a clear career development framework within our company. This framework not only outlines the skills and achievements required for progression but also includes personalized development plans and regular feedback sessions to ensure everyone feels supported and has a clear path to success. It’s had a tremendous impact on creating a ‘clear-is-kind’ culture.”

Johnny Selman, Principal & Executive Creative Director at Selman

Find the right balance of employees vs. contractors:

Many teams are moving away from traditional staffing models to employ a mixed balance of employees and contractors, reaping the benefits of both. While having employees has its obvious advantages (e.g., consistency, stability, more economical), contractors do allow more fluidity to scale and give you access to a broader range of resources and specialized skills and talents that you may not have a full-time need for.

“We find that 10% of our labor being contract allows us to take advantage of times when we are busier than usual. If that starts going over 10% consistently for 3-6 months or so, it tells us we should probably hire another full-time person to deliver the work.”

Craig Johnson, President & Co-founder at Matchstic

Client-facing and/or operational roles—particularly at the account/project and creative direction levels—are best suited to employees since needs shift on a daily basis, clients need a dedicated and available point of contact, and firms need someone they can trust to represent them to the client. On the other hand, contractors are best for skill-based roles where they are brought in to provide expertise the team lacks or fill a short-term resourcing gap. That said, having the right balance and being deliberate about who is an employee hire versus a contract hire is important to ensure you’re building a team that runs how you need it to.

Build a talent pipeline:

Because unicorns and talent with specialized skill sets can be hard to find and recruit, we should develop robust strategies to attract and build a pipeline of potential future candidates and contractors that we can pull from and consider when a hiring or contract needs arise. By building a network of talent even when we don’t have a need, we’ll be able to make more deliberate (i.e., less reactive) decisions when the need does arise.

“We maintain a healthy freelancer network as a great way to work with new people and leverage special skill sets.”

Johnny Selman, Principal & Executive Creative Director at Selman

Build a leadership team:

Many firms have incorporated leadership teams into their organizational models to retain exceptional talent, reward and leverage untapped entrepreneurial skill sets, and distribute responsibilities more evenly. The leadership team is the middle layer between the firm’s principal(s) and the rest of the staff. They are tasked with leading specific areas of the business and empowered to make decisions, often independently of the firm’s principal. Leadership teams can also provide the opportunity for more exit planning strategies for principals (e.g., ownership transfer).

• “Establishing a leadership team with multiple touchpoints has allowed us to maintain the same level of care and attention during this growth for our internal team and external client projects. It has also freed me up to focus on the aspects of the studio practice that I love doing—creative art direction and connecting with our clients and collaborators.” – Dungjai Pungauthaikan, Principal at Once–Future Office
• “As we’ve grown, we’ve made a deliberate effort to raise up senior-level leaders with business acumen in addition to their subject matter expertise. We’re counting on these folks to manage the day-to-day activities that contribute to our financial metrics. They are closer to the work, so they can enact more changes and bring their teams along with them. That means our executive team can focus on bigger visioning initiatives like how and where to invest, longer-term planning, and more intentional growth strategies.” – Jessica Teal, Principal at Teal Media

Be flexible:

To support the shifting priorities of our staff and leaders, flexibility is now a must and comes in many forms, from four-day workweeks to work days/hours that accommodate personal schedules (e.g., parents who work in the evening) to employee ownership (ESOP) to remote work policies.

• “The four-day workweek defied conventional wisdom, but as we looked deeper, we saw a ton of value not just for our team members but for Friendly Design Co as a business. During our initial trial, we not only maintained our existing revenue levels, we increased them; while the team reported better mental health, the ability to spend more time with family and friends, and higher job satisfaction. What’s more, work improved as team members had more time to recharge and create space for their creativity.” – Geoff Silverstein, Partner, Managing Director, Friendly Design
• “We are fully distributed and fly the team together 2-3 times per year to build more bonds away from the work. We also talk each week in our all-hands about our core values and have a different team member tell a story or lesson around one of them.” – Craig Johnson, President & Co-founder at Matchstic
• “Life doesn’t always fit into neat boxes, so I ensure that people can take time for personal matters as long as they communicate clearly with their teammates, especially when deadlines are looming. This enables us to support each other more effectively without losing our momentum.” – Andy Kopietz, Principal at Good Done Daily

Infuse transparency:

Our employees are not only asking for but also benefiting from more transparency from their leaders. If done strategically, the right amount of transparency promotes team collaboration, shared learning, and provides more context for business decisions being made. Industry leaders are defining the sweet spot between what they are comfortable sharing and what they keep private. Your employees don’t want to feel the pressures of running a business (e.g., financial worries), but they do want insight and open communications into the reasoning behind certain critical decisions (e.g., new business choices, organizational changes, hiring needs, salary bands). Transparency gives them this context.

“We’ve always been a very transparent company—sharing the high-level financial metrics and explaining how those metrics inform decisions about how we run the company. When more people on the team understand how business works, there are more points of communication that connect the dots between the ‘business’ of a creative agency and the ‘craft’ of a creative agency. And you need both to have staying power.”

Jessica Teal, Principal at Teal Media

The End Result

By experimenting with and implementing new and evolved organizational strategies, we are fostering workplaces that are empowering, thoughtfully structured, and flexible to the shifting priorities of prospects, staff, and the leaders/principals of creative organizations. We must be open to the new, embracing change, and growing, particularly in our organizational approaches and strategies, if we want to build and grow our creative firms sustainably, ethically, and strategically.

Read more in the Business of Creativity series:

How Creative Businesses Can Advocate for our Firms, Our People, and our Profession

Strategies for Building Your New Business Pipeline

Emily Cohen and Hunter Vargas are business partners and consultants at Casa Davka who offer customized business solutions to creative firms so they are able to refine, evolve, and elevate their strategies and practices. Emily has been in the business for over 30+ years, partnered with 500+ leading creative firms, and is a frequently requested main stage speaker. Hunter is an experienced marketer, project manager, client partner, and business development manager. They also happen to be a mother/daughter pair, so they work together seamlessly, complementing (and challenging) each other in many ways.

The post The Business of Creativity: The New Creative Team appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

But Brown’s journey to this new role has been anything but direct. After failing to get into the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo, he studied political science and economics at Wilfrid Laurier University. “I ended up studying political science and economics simply because I grew up in a strict West Indian household,” he said. “Back then, that meant there were three jobs: if you want to build a career anywhere, you’re a lawyer, you’re a doctor, or you’re an accountant. There was never going to be an answer where I was ‘the starving artist.’” 

Studying political science and economics left Brown feeling listless, adrift, and unfulfilled. “When I finished there, I was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with this,’” he shared candidly. Brown then learned about graphic design programs and opportunities elsewhere and enrolled at the Ontario College of Art and Design. “I got there, and my mind exploded,” he said. “When I talk about that period of my life, I say they replaced my eyes because I looked at everything differently. I was just like, I can’t believe this world existed! And it helped me make sense of all the things that I had been doing up to that point; the things I was attracted to, and why I thought something was beautiful.” 

Tell me your business problem, and I’ll tell you how design can help you solve it.

As much as Brown loved the world of graphic design he had then immersed himself in, he still had nagging questions about it as a viable career path, especially as a Black designer. “I was like one of three Black kids in the entire school,” he said. “Even though I knew I was good at graphic design, representation is such a powerful thing. In my graduating year in my history of graphic design class, this guy walks in to give a lecture, and he’s this African guy with dreadlocks. Sabaa Quao gets up on stage and starts talking, and I’m just in awe of this person. I ran up to him after and said, “I don’t care what it takes; I need to work with you; I need to work for you.” Up until the moment I saw him, I still wasn’t sure that there was a path or a career for me. I interned with him that summer, and that was the beginning of it.”   

Now in the throes of the early stages of his career, Brown bopped around between agency gigs in Toronto for a while before finding himself at a small branding firm there called Tudhope. He worked there for two intense years, learning on the job in a sink-or-swim environment. Tudhope was bought by the branding consultancy Interbrand, where Brown worked for 7 years, taking on massive projects including global branding projects for UPS, Thomson Reuters, and the New York Stock Exchange. “There were a lot of critical growth moments there where I was reassured that, yes, you belong here, yes, you belong here…”

Brown’s insatiable drive to learn and grow bubbled over at a certain point, forcing him to pursue change once again. “The economics part of my education started pulling me a little bit,” he said. “I loved what I was doing, but I wasn’t sure I had a direct enough impact on my clients’ businesses. So I decided to go innovate. I love communications, but I wanted to go somewhere where I could be part of a team that was actually responsible for the invention of these products and services that resulted in that new revenue for their clients. That’s why I fell in love with Fahrenheit 212.”

Fahrenheit 212, an innovation strategy and design firm, had a distinct methodology perfect for Brown. The business structure, called “Money and Magic,” comprised two entities: Design and Product (aka magic) and Commercial Strategy (aka money). Brown headed the Design and Product team for four years, composed of branding experts, journalists, industrial designers, ethnographers, and others who led the consumer proposition. “In design terms, we were responsible for the desirability part of the Venn diagram,” explained Brown. Meanwhile, the Money cohort was made up of “refugees from the finance world,” as Brown put it (ex-BCG, ex-McKinsey, ex-Deloitte), who ran financial models on the ideas that Brown’s team would generate.

I’m able to have authentic conversations with everyone across the organization relative to their practice, because I’ve been a strategist and I’ve been a designer.

“There was this natural tension all the time. ‘This is a great idea!’ But then, ‘No one can afford it!'” said Brown. “We always considered viability, feasibility, and desirability. I loved the constant head-butting that de-risked ideas.”

While heading the Design and Product team, Brown told me he spent more time with the Commercial Strategy crew because he was attracted to their mentality. “I was so intrigued by them, and I was drawn into all of the conversations that they were having. That gave me the confidence to start my own firm.”

After helming his small firm Dan + Jason + Co. with a former Interbrand colleague, Dan Spiegel, for four years, Brown once again found himself at a crossroads. “I’d turned 50 and was like, ‘Okay, what’s next? What’s the next chapter?’”

Brown spoke candidly with me about the opportunities presented to him around that time, following George Floyd’s murder and the ensuing social reckoning. “There’s only been three years out of the 30 that I’ve been doing this—seven spent specifically at Interbrand—where I wasn’t the only Black person in the whole office,” he explained, referencing the fact that for those three years in particular he worked closely with two other Black men who have since become great friends. “Even within an office of 200 people at Interbrand, I was the only one for four years. But suddenly, Black was the new Black, and the phone was ringing off the hook, and everybody wanted some.”

But when Brown took the calls and pressed the companies for their actual plans for change, their short-sighted virtue signaling became apparent. “‘Tell me what’s fundamentally going to change about your business in response to this, with me authoring this for you— I can’t be your poster boy,’” he’d say. “‘What are your plans? Can I see your numbers right now? Can I see what your company looks like in terms of diversity statistics?’ Most of them didn’t call back.” 

While those true colors disappointed Brown, he said it was an invaluable learning experience. “It was probably the first time in my career where I really felt like I was advocating for myself versus working extra hard, taking every order, and feeling like I had to outperform my colleagues. That moment led me to a real leadership position— advocating and being okay with a conversation like this. Rather than defaulting to not wanting to be uncomfortable, I thought, No, we’re going to talk about this. I don’t care if you’re not comfortable. That was a significant moment for me; being able to take a stance even with potential clients was a big thing.”

There’s only been three years out of the 30 that I’ve been doing this where I wasn’t the only Black person in the whole office. Even within an office of 200 people at Interbrand—I was the only one. But suddenly, Black was the new Black, and the phone was ringing off the hook, and everybody wanted some. 

To help figure out his next move, Brown turned to a trusted mentor, Keith Yamashita of SYPartners, for guidance. “He’s always a bit of a guru. He’s the first person I call,” he said. “I’m thinking, ‘How do I leverage all my expertise and experience?’ And he asked, ‘Well, what do you like doing? What does your life look like, and what do you want your life to look like?’” 

“I knew I didn’t want to go back to creative,” Brown reflected. “I had no interest in being a Head of Creative or a Chief Creative Officer somewhere. I’d enjoyed the operator challenge so much— what it means to run a successful business.” After hooking up with Patrick Godfrey and Scott Dadich of Godfrey Dadich Partners and becoming the President of their New York office for a stint, Pearlfisher came calling. 

“I couldn’t be happier with how this has worked out,” he told me. “When the call came through, I had a visceral emotional reaction. As a designer, everyone knows Pearlfisher— top-notch, industry-leading work, and it’s actually fun work. They’re legendary.” Working at a company that has done iconic work in the past is one thing, but Brown is all about looking ahead to the future. “My task is taking what has been great (and it’s not that it isn’t still great) and reclaiming some of that top-spot glow,” he said. “We have a right to do more than what we’re doing, and to make it clear that we do more.” 

I had no interest in being a Head of Creative or a Chief Creative Officer somewhere. I’d enjoyed the operator challenge so much—what it means to run a successful business.

Though Brown is in the early stages of digging into Pearlfisher, he’s energized by the potential he’s already uncovered. “I’m super excited about discovering what is in the organization that they haven’t unlocked yet. There are skills and talents and capabilities that are sitting dormant, or they’re buried,” he said. “Immediately, I’m seeing a lengthy list of additional products and offerings that can come from the organization authentically. We’re not going to bolt things on, but we can stretch into places that make a ton of sense for who we are and that I think the markets will give us license to go to; it’s a natural extension of what we already do. That’s what got me really, really excited. It was the concentric circle diagram with packaging at the center, and thinking about how many rings we can start considering moving out to grow the business.”

Brown’s eclectic and meandering career path has ideally suited him to take on this new position at Pearlfisher from a place of deep, experiential understanding. “The reality is that I’m now responsible for growing an organization whose functions I’ve done all of,” he explained. “I’m able to have authentic conversations with everyone across the organization relative to their practice because I’ve been a strategist and a designer. There’s a credibility that I bring to running a creative organization, which I then think establishes a measure of trust from the beginning that you might not get from a pure operator who’s just there to grow revenue and doesn’t understand the business, the people in the business, or the product.”

It’s rare for an operator with Brown’s level of expertise also to have so much experience on the creative side, making him the ideal candidate for Pearlfisher. Looking back on his journey to this moment, every step has helped shape him to be perfectly suited for this opportunity. Even the things that might have felt like missteps at the time, like studying economics and political science in undergrad, were critical. 

“The major/minor in economics and political science, combined with my design capabilities, threw me right into the world of branding,” he said. “I love design, but it needs to be functional, number one. I’m solving design problems or solving business problems through the lens of design. Tell me your business problem, and I’ll tell you how design can help you solve it.”

This perspective has been cultivated through Brown’s unique and specific path, wending its way to Pearlfisher’s doorstep. “Every step that happened to this point had to happen for this moment to happen!” he told me triumphantly. “Even the challenging years, I had to go through that because I learned more of what not to do than what to do, but that’s also a critical lesson. Every part of my journey was meant to happen for this opportunity to be real.”

Brand photography courtesy of Pearlfisher.

The post Jason Brown’s Perfectly Imperfect Path to Pearlfisher appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.

I realized this year that New Year’s Day is one of my favorite holidays. It’s kind of a funny one, isn’t it? At first blush, it can seem arbitrary; it’s just a day we decided would be the first day of a new year. If it falls on a Monday (like it did this year), how is that Monday different from any other Monday (except that some of us probably had the day off of work.) But there is a connection between the natural world and our history.

Ancient calendars were typically based on lunar or solar cycles. Those glowing orbs in the sky dictated much of human life as seasons and tides affected climate, fishing, and agriculture. And because their cycles repeat, our ancestors could set their proverbial watches to them to generate predictable timescales. They may not have understood the astrophysics at play, but they understood that it got dark and light again over the course of a day. They recognized the time between new moons to be around 30 days, one month. And while they didn’t know the tilt of the Earth’s axis and its long orbit around the sun were the cause of seasons, they knew every year it got cold and got warm again, and they celebrated the solstices, summer and winter, as critical moments in their agrarian lives.

The early Roman calendar, which influenced much of Western culture, was originally a lunar calendar with ten months and the year beginning in March. In 45 BCE, Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar, a solar calendar composed of 365 days divided into 12 months, adding January and February into the mix. But why January 1 as the start of the new year? Well, picture this: ancient Romans celebrated the winter solstice as a key turning point in the year, when the days would start getting longer to welcome the upcoming spring. This period was marked by Saturnalia, a festival in mid-December honoring Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture and time. The celebration included feasting, games, and gift-giving — the Romans partied like it was 0099 (BCE). After the celebration died down and people recovered, the newly elected Roman Consuls — the two highest elected public officials of the Roman Republic — began their one-year term. That date? January 1. A new beginning, a new opportunity.

January 1 is all about opportunity. January is named after Janus, the Roman god of doors and gates, symbolizing beginnings and a fresh start. That feeling you get on January 1, like you can take on the world, you’re going to go to the gym, you’re going to start a business, psychologists call that the “Fresh Start Effect” — a period of increased motivation and drive for goal-setting that many people experience at the start of a new time period. The “temporal landmark” that is New Year’s Day helps us navigate time and segment our experience into distinct chapters, making it easier to mentally separate our past failures or setbacks from our future intentions and opportunities.

Those Roman Consuls started the year with their ideas and ambitions as farmers of opportunity. And then, at the end of the year, they celebrated the results of their work right along with the crop farmers. Every business design project is about identifying and unlocking opportunities. As a business designer, I feel like an opportunity farmer — and the new year feels like the start of my season.

Opportunities & Where to Find Them

Opportunity is the seed of promise, of possibility. An opportunity is a set of circumstances that make it possible to do something. Opportunities are everywhere, in every size, shape, and color, just waiting to be found. Finding opportunities requires pattern recognition across human behavior, technological innovation, market dynamics, or some combination of all three. Note: I think you can create opportunities by influencing human behavior, creating breakthrough technology advancement, or changing the market dynamics — but what caused you to put your scarce resources of time, attention, and money towards making this opportunity? You first found patterns of possibility.

Pattern recognition, often likened to “connecting the dots,” is the cognitive process of identifying and understanding the regularities, structures, or relationships among data or phenomena. It involves detecting similarities, differences, and trends within complex sets of information to form meaningful insights or predictions. Our big brains are great at this! Pattern recognition allows us to recognize faces, understand language, and make decisions based on previous experiences.

Pattern recognition enables us to find opportunities by providing insights that are not immediately obvious, facilitating a deeper understanding of complex issues or environments. In business and technology, recognizing patterns can reveal market trends, consumer behaviors, operational inefficiencies, and more — offering strategic advantages and innovative opportunities. Some examples:

Impossible Foods, the producer of plant-based meat substitutes, found an opportunity by identifying emerging human behaviors and market dynamics: interest in plant-based diets and concerns over meat production’s environmental impact. Coupled with their technological advancement of producing heme from plants (heme is the naturally occurring molecule that helps give meat its complex flavor), they created a juicy business opportunity.

Square, the financial services platform, found a rise in independent businesses (new human behavior creating a new market dynamic) created a gap in the market: small businesses and individual merchants who couldn’t accept credit card payments. They developed a simple technological innovation, a compact, portable card reader that connects to a smartphone or tablet, leveraging mobile technology to democratize access to payment processing systems.

Slack, the digital communication platform, identified the human need to connect, with the changing human behavior toward less hierarchical workplace communication. With the advancements in cloud computing and the market gap for an efficient, always-on, real-time communication system, there was an opportunity for collaboration in the increasingly remote and distributed workplace market.

See the pattern? Human behavior, plus technological innovation, plus market dynamics.

Passive Opportunity Farming

There are both passive and active approaches to finding opportunities.

Passive opportunity farming means having a curious mindset and observational approach to life. Curiosity is a natural human trait, but like any skill, it can be nurtured and developed through practice. Fostering curiosity encourages a mindset that finds joy and value in seeking new information, experiences, and understanding.

The Finnish futurist and author Elina Hiltunen often writes about “weak signals” helping us predict and respond to the future: “Weak signals are like whispers of the future, easily drowned out by the noise of the present. Paying attention to them requires a keen ear and an open mind.”

Be broadly curious about trends in human behavior, technological innovation, and generally what’s happening in the market and the world. This involves absorbing content from various sources, formats, and perspectives, including books, articles, podcasts, social media, news, data, reports, and more. More importantly, it means being present, observing, and being open to life by seeking new experiences, trying new things, and connecting with people.

Going broad gives you the general context across human behavior, technology, and the market. But it’s also essential to be deeply immersed in what you care about and are interested in. Be a “comb person” by going broad with your experience and deep in your interests. You’re naturally going to see connections and patterns in the things you care about and between the things you care about and the broader context of what’s happening in the world.

In the mid-2000s, my co-founder, Derek Cascio, and I were deeply immersed in Boston’s design industry and community. We passively started recognizing patterns around us.

Human behavior: We saw that designers of all stripes wanted to connect with a broad community of multidisciplinary designers — designers were affiliating less with professional or trade organizations and more with organizations that cut across design fields. Plus there was a growing interest in the public to understand the power of design better.

Technological innovation: Social media and mobile device use was on the rise.

Market dynamics: this was during the Great Recession — there was very little funding for new ideas, but there were a lot of empty storefronts around the city that we could utilize.

The opportunity was to create a nomadic design museum that could build a broad-based community amongst designers and make design thought leadership accessible to the masses using a pop-up approach and digital/social media.

Always Be Curious

As a business designer, I’ve trained myself to look for pain points, user needs, and opportunities throughout my day. As I observe human behavior, I often ask myself questions like:

• What would solve this person’s problem?
• What are people doing today that’s annoying or burdensome — how could it be done differently, by technology or someone else?
• How would someone with unlimited resources tackle this, and can I bring that solution down to earth for everyday people?
• This company is solving this need this way; what are different/better ways to solve it?

Another fun approach is acting like a five-year-old: The “5 Whys” approach involves asking the question, “Why?” Five times (or as many times as needed) to peel away the layers of symptoms and reach the core of an issue or opportunity. For example, let’s pretend we’re looking for opportunities related to declines in user engagement on our mobile app:

1. Why is our mobile app experiencing declining user engagement? Because users are spending less time on the app than they used to.
2. Why are they spending less time on the app? (After some user research.) Because the content doesn’t seem relevant or engaging to them anymore.
3. Why does the content not seem relevant or engaging anymore? Because the app’s content recommendation algorithm still needs to be updated to reflect changes in user preferences or trends.
4. Why hasn’t the content recommendation algorithm been updated? Because our team needs to gain the latest data science and machine learning skills to improve the algorithm effectively.
5. Why does our team need to gain these skills? Because we have yet to provide ongoing training for our team or hire new talent with this expertise.

Questions become opportunities, which become more questions, which become more opportunities, in a double helix of wondrous curiosity and possibility.

The most crucial activity you can do while passively farming opportunities is to capture your observations, thoughts, and ideas. I like to write — ever since I was a kid, I’ve journaled my ideas. When I was 13, I had a notebook called my “Book of Ideas.” I was immersed in everything a teenager loves: video games, movies, and sports, so I wrote down all my ideas about those things. I still do it today, just not in a spiral-bound book (my 13-year-old self would have loved to have an iPad).

An approach I like is free writing or free sketching. I take a large sheet of paper (or, again, my iPad) and start writing and sketching whatever comes to mind about an idea, observation, or topic. It’s about getting things out of my head so I can react to them. Another approach I probably don’t use enough is mind mapping — you can do this with several tools, including paper and pen (it’s straightforward in Mural, Miro, or FigJam). You start with a central idea, subject, or problem you’re exploring — write it in the center of the page and circle it. Then start building branches off it — you’ll begin making connections and drawing out the patterns.

Passive Example

For a while, I thought I might build my next startup in the short-form audio social media space (who knows, maybe I still will!). The opportunity grew in my mind as I passively immersed myself in the things that interest me and that I’m passionate about. I started to pick up weak signals and recognize potential patterns.

First, I love audio. I grew up listening to the radio; for a long while, I was addicted to NPR talk radio, and I adore podcasts and audiobooks. I hosted the Design Museum podcast, Design is Everywhere, for about two years, and we built it into one of the top design podcasts in the U.S. Our excellent producer, Amor Yates (who now works for Audible), said it best: audio is the most intimate form of content. Someone’s voice enters your mind, and in doing so, you connect to their thoughts and ideas.

When COVID hit the world, an interesting new social app emerged. Clubhouse, the audio-based social networking app, was founded by Paul Davison and Rohan Seth in 2020. The idea for Clubhouse emerged from the founders’ interest in creating a more engaging and personal way for people to connect online. They saw an opportunity in voice as a medium — believing it to be more intimate and expressive than text or images — for people to share ideas, stories, and experiences. The platform envisioned a space where people could gather to talk, listen, and learn from each other in real time without the need to type or be on camera. The platform quickly garnered attention for its unique approach to social media, focusing on voice chat rooms that allow people to discuss various topics in real-time.

I quickly signed up — this was a chance to connect with people while practicing social distancing during the pandemic. And I really wanted to like it. I just found that I didn’t. When I reflected on it, for me, it was the real-time nature of the platform. You joined a session, and people were talking live — participating was hard for me; I was either working or had a crying child in my arms. I like the asynchronousity of social platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn.

Another signal: one of my colleagues at the museum at the time, the amazing Jocelyn Rice, started sending me audio messages on Slack. Our team used Slack religiously to send quick (and some not-so-quick) text-based messages throughout the day. Jocelyn began to use the audio functionality, recording short messages instead of typing them out. I found myself really enjoying this kind of asynchronous communication — I got so much more of her meaning, emotion, and message through audio. I started to respond with audio as well — it was really nice!

It all got me thinking: was there an opportunity for a short-form audio social media platform with a different approach?

Active Opportunity Farming

Of course, you can actively seek patterns and, therefore, actively farm opportunities. Indeed, business designers are often called upon to identify opportunities within a company or industry that lead to creating new ventures or improving existing initiatives.

To take a more direct approach to finding opportunities, I always start by researching and generating an ecosystem map. An ecosystem map visualizes the various elements and actors within a business or market ecosystem, including their interrelationships and interactions. This tool is instrumental for companies to comprehensively understand their operating environment, identify potential opportunities for collaboration or innovation, and recognize the dynamics that could impact their strategy and operations.

An ecosystem map goes beyond the immediate stakeholders of a company to include a broader range of components such as competitors, suppliers, customers, regulatory bodies, technology platforms, and other relevant entities. But note, if you’re looking for patterns and opportunities within a single company, you might zoom in to analyze connections and relationships between specific users and stakeholders; it’s all about altitude of focus.

An ecosystem map for the social audio space might look something like this. By mapping this out, we can see strategic opportunities (or threats) and uncover opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and new value propositions.

This map helps guide a deep literature and data review, which means absorbing as much content as possible across all sources (books, articles, podcasts, data, trend reports, competitive insights, etc.) related to the actors, industries, and influencers in this ecosystem and who affect this ecosystem. In my content review, I found many articles about the coming wave of social audio startups, combined with an equal array of content about how social audio will never catch on. The big players, like Twitter (now X) and Facebook, were trying to recreate the magic of Clubhouse on their platforms, while up-and-comers were attempting to create “the Twitter of social audio.” In parallel, long-form social audio — podcasting — was exploding. According to Marie Charlotte Götting, a research expert on audio media, in 2006, only 22% of the U.S. adult population was aware of podcasting. By 2022, that figure had risen to 79%. Over 82 million people listened to podcasts in 2021, and that number is likely closer to 100 million in 2024.

In addition to diving into literature and data, you always want to immerse yourself in the space as much as possible — these steps can happen in parallel. Experience things yourself where possible and talk to people to learn about their experiences, needs, and desires. In the case of social audio, this meant downloading the various existing apps from established tech companies and startups and trying them out myself. I tried apps like Clubhouse, which focused on real-time discussion; apps like Riffr, which focused on folks posting short audio clips; and apps like Cappuccino.fm, which is all about staying connected to people you know. I also spoke to people who use these apps or who make and listen to podcasts and other audio content. It’s a lot of information to take in, so again, to make sense of it all, I recommend keeping a journal of observations, user pain points, and glimmers of opportunity.

Personas & Jobs to Be Done

Journalling is excellent for making sense of your immersion work (essential, in my opinion) — there are also more structured approaches. After talking to enough people within the ecosystem, you could build a persona(s). Personas are semi-functional characters representing a key segment of a business’s intended audience. It’s a detailed profile that embodies a larger group’s characteristics, needs, goals, and behavior patterns.

Personas are created through research and analysis of the business’ actual or potential customers and are used to make the design, marketing, product development, and strategic decisions more customer-centric. Persona profiles should include demographic (age, occupation, education, etc.) and psychographic information (interests, hobbies, values, lifestyle choices, and behaviors), as well as goals, motivation, pain points, and challenges.

While personas are a widely used tool in business design, they have also faced criticism and challenges regarding their creation and application. Personas can oversimplify and generalize complex user behaviors and motivations, leading to stereotypes rather than accurate representations. This oversimplification can result in designs that only partially meet the nuanced needs of the actual user base. If personas are created based on limited or biased data, they may not accurately reflect the intended audience. The risk is higher when personas are based more on assumptions or secondary research than on thorough, direct user research. And design teams might fall into the trap of confirmation bias, where they use personas to validate their pre-existing beliefs and assumptions rather than challenge them. Incomplete personas can limit innovation and the exploration of diverse user needs. They’re a good tool that must complement other research and design methods to ensure a more holistic understanding of the user experience.

To that end, I like to combine personas with the deep immersion I discussed before, plus the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework — an approach to understanding customers’ underlying needs and motivations. Business consultant Clayton Christensen popularized the framework; he suggested that products and services should be developed based on the “jobs” customers are trying to get done in their lives rather than solely focusing on the customers’ demographic characteristics or product attributes. A “job” in this context is essentially progress that a customer is trying to make in a particular circumstance, which includes solving problems, fulfilling needs, or achieving goals. Here is how to apply the JTBD framework:

1. Identify the Job(s): The first step is defining the job the customer is trying to complete. This involves understanding the task, the desired outcome, and the job’s context.
2. Understand the Customer’s Context: Delve into the specific circumstances that affect how the job is done, including pain points and obstacles that customers face.
3. Segment by Job, Not Demographics: Traditional market segmentation often focuses on demographics or product categories. JTBD requires segmenting the market based on the jobs customers are trying to accomplish.
4. Focus on Job Satisfaction: Investigating how well current solutions in the market satisfy the job and identifying improvement areas can reveal innovation opportunities.
5. Develop Solutions: Design your product or service to address the job effectively, ensuring that it can be done more efficiently, effectively, or satisfyingly than existing solutions.

From my immersion and user interviews, I created some personas for the social audio opportunity I was developing, along with some of their jobs to be done:

Sketching for Opportunity Finding

There’s a misconception that design is a linear process — it’s not. Again, you can immerse yourself in existing experiences, talk to customers, and sketch ideas in parallel. For my process, each activity feeds the other. Based on my research and immersion, an opportunity was taking shape in the social audio project, mainly because I felt no one had quite figured out how to unlock short-form audio on a social platform — something was missing.

My hunch was that “missing something” was the “blank page” problem. This is a challenge writers, artists, designers, and other creative professionals often encounter — it refers to the challenge of starting a new project or piece of work from scratch. Facing a blank page — whether it’s a literal sheet of paper, a blank document on a computer screen, or any starting point without pre-existing content — can be daunting and lead to feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and creative block.

I found that when using social audio apps, I suffered from the “blank page” problem — or maybe it was the “blank microphone” problem. I’d tap record, and I just didn’t know what to say. The absence of constraints or directions and the sheer number of potential starting points and directions were overwhelming, leading me to freeze up. I felt this pressure to produce something meaningful from the outset, which made it difficult to make the first move. With traditional text and image social media, you can write a draft, look at it, edit it, and improve it — that’s more difficult with audio.

But how do we overcome this challenge in audio content creation? Well, as a business designer, I often feel the “blank page” problem — I push past it by having a process, just starting anywhere, or using prompts. So that got me thinking about this opportunity: What if there was a social audio platform with a prompt?

I started sketching an idea for an app I called StoryRoll — the prompt was to tell a short story (around 5 minutes max) with a beginning, middle, and end. I love stories; they’re how humans best communicate — I thought it might be cool to sit back and listen to a few short, 5-minute stories when I had a little downtime. As a content creator, I felt I could write short stories, edit them in text form, and then record them.

There’s nothing like sketching your ideas to get them out of your head so you can react to them and show them to others to get their reactions. When I looked at StoryRoll and chatted about it with others, it still didn’t go far enough to address the “blank microphone” problem. So I started pushing on that; what if when you opened the app, the prompt was the first thing you saw, and to interact, you needed to address the prompt? And what are the best prompts? Questions! What if there was a social audio platform all about answering questions and hearing others’ responses to those questions?

I started sketching an idea I called HeyQ, a social audio app that asks the entire user base one question per day. Users answer the question with a short audio message (1-3 minutes), and the answers of all users show up on the main feed — you could also follow people to curate your feed of users’ responses. Every day, HeyQ would curate answers to that day’s question and produce a short podcast (around 30 minutes) with some notable responses, as well as generate your own personalized podcast featuring responses from the folks you follow. The next day, a new question to respond to would pop up, creating a core loop of engagement.

Framing Opportunities

Once you’ve found your opportunity(s) — what’s next? I find it essential to translate opportunities into something useful and actionable for myself or others if I’m working with a team. Framing opportunities is crucial for aligning and directing the efforts of individuals or teams towards areas that hold significant potential for value creation. There are several ways to do this.

How Might We? “How might we…?” (HMW) questions are open-ended questions crafted to initiate brainstorming and ideation, encouraging creative thinking and exploring possible solutions to a design challenge or problem. The structure of HMW questions is deliberately optimistic and inclusive, suggesting that solutions are possible and that the team can find them together. This approach helps to shift the mindset from focusing on obstacles to exploring opportunities. Example:

“How might we design a social platform user experience to maximize participation and ensure users feel a strong sense of community and belonging while making it easy and intuitive for new users to start contributing?”

Problem Statement. You can create a problem statement — a clear and concise description of an issue to be addressed or solved. Typically, it outlines the gap between the current and desired states, identifying the obstacles preventing reaching the goal. A well-crafted problem statement includes the problem’s context, its impact, and the specific needs that are not being met. In business, problem statements initiate projects, guide research, and focus development efforts. For the short-form audio opportunity, it could look something like this:

Digital audio platforms struggle to foster genuine connections, with users often facing the “blank microphone” problem, inhibiting authentic audio expression and interaction. This challenge is magnified by text-based social media’s inability to convey true emotion, leaving a gap for a platform that simplifies audio content creation and encourages meaningful dialogue without the pressure of perfection.

Opportunity Statement. You could write an opportunity statement focusing on the potential for improvement, growth, or innovation arising from a problem or market need. It shifts the perspective from what is wrong to what could happen by addressing the issue. Opportunity statements are forward-looking — they inspire imagination and creative thinking. They frame the problem as a chance to develop new solutions, enter new markets, improve customer experiences, or gain competitive advantages. For the social audio opportunity I focused on, that might look something like this:

We can address the “blank microphone” challenge by designing an experience that provides daily prompts that ease users into creating and sharing audio content, breaking down barriers to authentic expression. This strategy enriches social interaction with the depth of voice. It builds a community around shared stories and perspectives, redefining user engagement through a unique blend of user-generated content and curated podcasts.

Human Phenomena. I learned this one from my colleague Marc Priddy. Reframing an opportunity into simple human phenomena language means translating business or technical jargon into relatable, everyday terms that highlight the underlying human experiences, needs, or behaviors the opportunity addresses. Something like this:

Our platform must tap into the fundamental human desire for connection, storytelling, and understanding through the power of voice.

Truth. Assumption. Hope. This framework allows for a structured exploration of the underlying beliefs, desired outcomes, and realities that shape the potential success of the opportunity at hand:

Truth: The increasing popularity of audio content and podcasting, combined with a growing desire for authentic connection and expression, suggests a significant opportunity for social audio platforms. The truth is that people crave connections that feel real and personal, and audio offers a uniquely intimate medium to achieve this. The success of similar platforms indicates a market readiness for innovative approaches to social media and content consumption.

Assumption: People are seeking more meaningful and engaging ways to connect with others beyond traditional social media platforms. They prefer interactive content that allows for personal expression and the sharing of diverse perspectives, yet they often encounter barriers to content creation, such as the “blank microphone” problem.

Hope: By providing a platform that prompts users with daily questions, we hope to lower these barriers, encouraging more users to share their voices. The platform aims to foster a sense of community and belonging by aggregating these audio responses into daily podcasts, making users feel heard and connected. There’s an expectation that this format will enrich the social media landscape with deeper, more meaningful interactions and offer users a new way to engage with personal and community content.

Opportunity Triangle. We can use the opportunity triangle, discussed earlier, that aids in analyzing patterns across the interplay between three critical factors: human behavior, technological innovation, and market dynamics. At the heart of the triangle is the opportunity. Example:

Human Behavior: There’s a growing desire for more authentic, meaningful social interactions online. People are looking for new ways to express themselves and connect with others beyond traditional text-based social media, indicating a shift towards more personal and engaging content consumption and creation.

Technological Innovation: Advances in mobile technology, audio recording, and streaming have made it easier than ever for users to create and consume audio content. This technological progress supports the development of new social audio platforms, which rely on user-generated audio content.

Market Dynamics: The increasing popularity of podcasts and audio content, combined with the saturation of text and video-based social networks, creates a market ripe for innovative audio-based social platforms. There’s a window for new entrants that differentiate themselves through unique features.

Project Brief. Lastly, a project brief can contain any of the above opportunity framings, and serves to outline the essential details of an opportunity-unlocking project before it begins. It serves as a roadmap for the project, providing a clear overview of its objectives, scope, assumptions, timeline, deliverables, and key stakeholders. The top ten elements of an effective project brief:

1. Project Overview: A summary of the project’s background, purpose, and justification, explaining why the project is happening.
2. Objectives: Clear, measurable goals that the project aims to achieve, aligning with the broader business objectives.
3. Scope: Defines what is included and excluded from the project, detailing the boundaries and limitations to manage expectations.
4. Deliverables: A list of the specific outputs or outcomes the project will produce, including any products, services, or reports.
5. Timeline: An estimated schedule for the project, highlighting key milestones, deadlines, and phases.
6. Budget: An overview of the project’s financial resources, including estimated costs and budget constraints.
7. Stakeholders: Identification of all parties involved or affected by the project, including team members, clients, and end-users.
8. Assumptions and Risks: Any assumptions made during the planning phase, potential risks that could impact the project, and mitigation strategies.
9. Requirements: Specific technical, functional, or operational requirements that the project must meet.
10. Approval Process: Details on how and when the project’s deliverables will be reviewed and approved, including key decision points.

I started my career as an industrial designer, and my tools and methods helped me shape physical forms to be beautiful and useful to people. As a business designer, my tools and methods help shape strategic direction, which means using language and visual frameworks to convey and communicate my ideas. Words matter. When you frame your opportunities, you’ll be doing the vital work of transforming your insights and challenges into clearly defined areas for innovation that align with business goals and, therefore, communicate clear, focused, and strategic objectives for you and your team to unlock and activate the opportunities you find.

Let the season of opportunity farming begin!

Before I go: If you’re curious, I prototyped the HeyQ social audio app to take the concept further. Will I pursue this opportunity? I’m not sure. However, it was an interesting side project to push my thinking on opportunity identification and activation. Check out the demo here, and let me know what you think.

Sam Aquillano is an entrepreneur, design leader, writer, and founder of Design Museum Everywhere. This post was originally published in Sam’s twice-monthly newsletter for the creative-business-curious, Business Design School. Check out Sam’s book, Adventures in Disruption: How to Start, Survive, and Succeed as a Creative Entrepreneur.

Images courtesy the author.

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James Joyce, the Irish literary icon, was happily living in Trieste when his sister arrived.

She told young James two things. The first, was that their father demanded that James come back home to Dublin.

The second thing she told him was that there were no cinemas in Ireland.

Joyce loved going to the movies. And Trieste was a bit of cinema paradiso boasting some 21 theaters.

You should also understand that back in the first decade of the 1900s, cinema and movies was a new technology. A bit like the Netflix or AI explosion of today.

As the story goes James agreed to leave his beloved Trieste, but he left this quirky, Italian-speaking part of Austria with an idea. An idea to bring cinema to Dublin.

In fact, he shopped and pitched his idea to various venture capitalists and took the boat home to the port of Dun Laoghaire armed with seed money and a founder’s zeal.

What’s fascinating here is that James Joyce was no business man. He was a writer. An artist.

Yet his instinct revealed a problem. And his rational side found a solution.

And sure enough, on December 20th, 1909, James Joyce opened the Volta Cinema on Mary Street. The first cinema in Ireland.

Economic problems (and other challenges) won’t be solved by “charts and maths.” But rather it’s creativity and the artists who see the invisible.

I heard this story from the Irish economist David McWilliams. McWilliams shared this anecdote to a bunch of us at the most recent TBWA global management meeting in Dublin.

McWilliams’ point was that creativity and commercial activity can very much be connected. And artists and entrepreneurs share many characteristics. In fact, McWilliams might argue that every entrepreneur is an artist. And every artist, an entrepreneur.

To take it a bit further, he teased out those traits saying that both artists and entrepreneurs…

“…Want to express themselves.

Want to do something differently.

Want to create something better than what’s ever been done before.

They are disruptive.

They live in the theater of risk.

They want to change the world…”

He then went on to remind us all that if allowed to flourish, these types of folks lead to economic prosperity. (He cited the Dutch of the 1600s and Ireland of the late 90s and 2000s.)

I’ll cite Madison Avenue of the 1960’s when Bill Bernbach, a creative person, lead a company and an industry into a creative (and financially-rewarded) revolution.

I’ll take it one step further and ask you? What do you see that others can’t see? What’s an idea you have?

You see, Mr. McWilliams drilled home the point that economic problems (and other challenges) won’t be solved by “charts and maths.”

But rather it’s creativity and the artists who see the invisible.

And the creatives among us who drive the world with intuition and ambition.

Data, AI and all things rational have their role and place.

But we can never underestimate the power of the person who dreams ideas in the clouds and throws three spread sheets to the wind.

Rob Schwartz is the Chair of the TBWA New York Group and an executive coach who channels his creativity, experience and wisdom into helping others get where they want to be. This was originally posted on his Substack, RobSchwartzHelps, where he covers work, life, and creativity.

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash.

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We speak with Ryan Larcom, a Director at High Alpha Innovation, a venture building studio, to learn about his business design approach to launching scalable startups. You can watch the full video of our conversation or read an edited/condensed transcript of our conversation below.

Sam Aquillano: We’ve got a great guest this week. We have someone who’s using business design to nurture and grow new startup ventures that connect deeply with user needs so that they can achieve scale, sometimes massive scale. We’re joined by Ryan Larcom from High Alpha Innovation. Ryan loves turning bold ideas into reality.

I’m told his superpower is complexity busting — he’s guiding leaders to make sense of business and industry complexities in order to gain confidence and execute. As a director at High Alpha Innovation, Brian partners with corporations and universities and build partnerships to co-design and structure investments in new venture-backable startups to unlock amazing innovation.

We’re gonna hear all about it. The common thread of Ryan’s career has been a desire to make the world a better place through thoughtfully designed business models, products and experiences. Like me, Ryan attended Rochester Institute of Technology for industrial design. He also majored in mechanical engineering. So I’m super excited to hear how he went from designing and making physical things to designing businesses. So welcome Ryan, thanks so much for being here.

Ryan Larcom: Awesome, great to be here, Sam.

SA: First off, set the stage for us, tell us about High Alpha Innovation and what you all do.

RL: High Alpha Innovation partners with large organizations that could be corporations, universities, even municipalities to help them innovate, specifically by launching startups. We believe that startups are really efficient learning engines, and when you’re trying to enter a new space, access a new market, create a new technology, they’re actually the most efficient way to go about doing those things. So we help them innovate by launching new startups.

SA: Why is that the most efficient approach?

RL: Big companies are really efficient at their core business model. In fact, that’s what they’ve gotten good at over years upon years upon years. They were learning engines once as well. They figured out how do you create a product. How do you bring it to market? And how do you deliver that product really efficiently and effectively? And so they’ve built a ton of knowledge around that. They’ve trained employees to be able to deploy that core strategy. The problem is that when you need to work outside of that core strategy into an adjacency of some sort or another, you’re outside of your common knowledge area. And those processes that make you great at executing on the core actually restrict you from learning in those new areas. And so that’s why we think startups are really, really good to attack that opportunity.

SA: Yeah, drop a little startup in a massive enterprise and watch the magic happen. So would you consider High Alpha Innovation an incubator? right? When I was growing my startup, we were part of an incubator/accelerator that gave us space, a little bit of money, certainly a ton of mentorship. And it was about sort of like getting us through some of the early stage blocks.

RL: We classify ourselves as a venture builder, a brand new category. You think about accelerators being a time-bound cohort of people who have existing businesses that are trying to get access to customers and investors. The venture studio was the next logical kind of movement — a venture builder takes all of the core processes and knowledge and turns them loose in the context of someone else’s business model, so in our case, corporations and universities.

SA: In so many of those parts of your career, you were doing business design. Maybe we didn’t call it business design then, but we’re definitely calling it now. So how do you define business design today?

RL: Yeah, it’s a hard word because I think it’s still an emerging one in many ways. You think about industrial design, which usually speaks about the creation of a product. When we think about business design, I think about it as the creation of a business, so design is a series of intentional choices, and there’s a whole capability set that we’ve built around that — usually in the context of products or collateral or assets, like, like graphic designer, industrial design.

On the business side, I think about a business model having three parts, feasibility, desirability, viability, or how you create, capture, and deliver value. Visual design typically focuses on just the creation of value. On the value proposition itself. Business design incorporates the revenue model and the resourcing of how you actually deploy that in the context of a profitable entity.

SA: Yes, and you can design towards those choices — that makes sense. I get this question lot so I want to ask you given your role: is there a difference between entrepreneurship and business design?

RL: That’s a really good question. I’ve never thought about it that way before. I think that entrepreneurs practice business design in some ways, right? Because as I said, startups are learning engines, and so you’re constantly learning what is your business model along the way. But there’s usually about three big movements I think about from entrepreneurship: you’re de-risking the tech, you’re de-risking the business model, and then you’re scaling the business. And so it’s that middle one where I tend to focus on business design, which is turning assumptions and knowledge around those three pieces of feasibility, viability, desirability, which usually exists, at least in venture backed startups, between zero and series A or B. Once you start scaling the business, technically you’re still designing it, but really all you’re doing is creating a growth engine that powers a business model that’s already been designed.

SA: Let’s pretend I’m a founder of a startup. How is that process happening from idea to partnership with large organizations?

RL: We’re partnering with organizations who want to innovate, and so what we’re first trying to figure out is the theme. Where do we want to focus this opportunity? Is it far enough adjacent that the core won’t accidentally suck it back in? And then is there enough space that you can innovate there and really differentiate from what exists in the market?

From there, we get from kind of macro, really tactical. We all grew up on jobs be done methodology, of which I’m still a huge fan — what we want to understand is for a given customer, for a given persona what are their unmet and priority jobs to be done. So we spend a lot of time trying to understand the functional, social, and emotional needs of users in specific circumstances, and then prioritize them based on which ones are valuable and important, unmet, and widely held, so that we can understand jobs that are yet to be satisfied in the world. And so that becomes the core of our business model. We spend the first six weeks just doing that before we more forward on anything. I think the world in general is really bad at framing problems and really great at solving them. We need to make sure we frame the right problem to solve.

SA: I would say that’s the foundation to build from, right? Because then from there, it’s more of like, what’s our unique value proposition? How are we making money? How are we delivering? Do you use the same sort of iterative discovery approach to those elements as well?

RL: Yeah, absolutely. So that’s a hypothesis when we ship it right out of the gate. And what we want to do is figure out what are the critical assumptions that sit underneath the hypothesis that this customer has an unsatisfied job to be done. And the danger is everybody tests the hypotheses that they know how to test best first, instead of the ones that are most critical, right? I’m a designer. I start sketching stuff on paper. My dad’s a CFO. He starts going to Excel to write the revenue model. My friends are engineers. They start figuring out if you can make this thing. But the problem is if you don’t do them in the right order you end up spending a lot of time where it doesn’t matter.

Really great example of this: one of our friends consulted with a large airline company that was trying to commercialize the Osprey, the vertical takeoff aircraft. The big idea was wouldn’t it be neat if we demilitarized this, you could now ship large numbers of civilians right from heliports right out. And so they spent millions of dollars on architects to design the experience of going to a heliport. They did the interior design to figure out how many people would fit in this thing.

And it was at this point that this individual came in with a consulting company and started looking at it and was like, have you guys talked to any pilots? And it turns out no commercial pilot wants to fly the Osprey because it was made for military pilots in military settings. It’s a dog to fly, it’s rough.

And so as a result, the consumer experience is terrible too. It’s loud and you couldn’t put enough noise isolation into this thing to make a good consumer experience. And so as a result, two key pieces of the value proposition on the revenue model just totally broke. And so we try to go through really rigorously and figure out what can we test and then what’s the lowest fidelity way that we could go about testing those, right? Before you put fingers to keyboard, we’re mocking up product in Figma. Before we mock up product in Figma, we’re hand sketching storyboards. Before hand sketching storyboards, we’re describing it with customers. And you want to just make sure that you’re testing and iterating and every step along the way.

SA: To clarify, are you then literally building a startup from scratch, then recruiting individuals that will then carry that forward? Or are you recruiting folks from inside the partner organization?

RL: Great question. This is where business design becomes venture building in my mind. So business design is shipping the final pitch deck that looks investable that says these are the series of intentional choices that we believe makes for a profitable, venture-backable, scalable business that ought to exist in the world.

Venture building then is snapping together all the other functions to make that work. We’ve got a recruiting team who finds world-class founders who want to found this. We’ve got a finance team who figures out how to turn this revenue model into a set of assumptions they can execute against. Legal folks who can figure out a cap table structure that makes this investable from a corporate partner and a venture perspective and so on. There’s lots of functions to make a functioning business.

And so yes, in our case, we usually go out and find great entrepreneurs from the world. And our specific thesis is that we’re launching these companies alongside often large corporations. And so if you’re going to be in relationship with your first company as big enterprise and first investor, you need an experienced entrepreneur who has been through that multiple times to be able to navigate some of those difficulties. It’s a huge lever and also a huge stick. And you want to make sure that you’ve got experienced folks.

What we want to do ultimately is to de-risk the business to the point that we can attract world-class entrepreneurs. Clearly, there’s a lot of work to get to that point, but the business is going to continue learning. That’s not an inflection point when you hire someone that continues to learn all the way through Series A plus. And so what we want to do is attract world-class founders. So problem number one is how do you get world-class founders to co-found businesses alongside you? And then how do you do it at scale?

SA: How do you break assumptions and build confidence when designing a business?

RL: I think first is it’s an iterative process. You’re coming down the funnel. And so part of confidence building is talking to hundreds of potential folks at the top of the funnel, seeing some of those come back again, who said, I have a problem.

And then we articulated back to them and they say, yes, that’s the correct articulation of that problem. And then another set coming back and us saying, what if we solved it this way? And then saying, yes, that’s the type of solution, the value props we’d want to see. And then us coming back with a product and saying, what if it looked like this? And then saying, yes. And then us coming back with a business model and saying, what if we priced it and packaged it like that? So you just bring folks down the funnel. And then your assets, of course, get more and more high fidelity along the way. What starts out as hand sketches ends up in in beautiful product walkthroughs and mockups and things that you can run user tests on. So I think it’s a lot about just the incremental moving from one end to the other. But I think there are a couple of really key inflection points where we look for traction, right? Not just that people say, yes, that’s really nice all the way down, but that someone’s willing to write a check. That really matters. That an entrepreneur who says, that’s a really neat idea is saying, I’ll leave my job and start this.

SA: Can you share a real case study?

RL: One of our first portfolio companies ended up being one of the early success stories that I just love to tell. We started work with Koch Industries. Koch’s got a portfolio of companies, including Georgia Pacific. We worked with one called Molex, they’re electronic suppliers. And they were having a hard time understanding which of their electronics components were most likely to be late and shut down their factory as a result of the lags of lead time. Now, this was just pre-pandemic. And when the pandemic took off, of course this became even more imminent.

We ended up shaking out a company called Amplio that initially went about identifying those risks so that instead of looking at hundreds of potential parts that could go wrong, procurement leaders could look at the nine that mattered that week and spend their time really efficiently and effectively making sure that they had been dual sourced or expedited or something like that. We were really lucky to get an employee from the Koch portfolio to run this. He was running a corner of Georgia Pacific supply chain and had been in startups before. We paired him with a chief data scientist from a supply chain startup — so he understood the venture space. This became this like perfect little combo that we just dropped in and said start building product.

They created value in 30 days. They were able to find things that procurement officers couldn’t get to in months and months. What’s funny though, for all the success — yay, business design — they hit their biggest pivot right after they launched. They realized that the more electronic suppliers that they got online the more interchangeable those parts were. And so, yes, Molex could expedite a part on a 747 from China, but it turns out that one of their other clients had an electronic supplier just across on the other side of Guadalajara that was producing interchangeable electronics components. And so they effectively became a marketplace. They could tell better where parts were and create interchangeability for these suppliers so that you were saving massive amounts of time and money.

Instead of trying to solve this on an Excel spreadsheet, they were solving it in the context of a marketplace. So huge pivot. That hit right before the hype cycle of VC ended on the far side of 2021, right at the peak of the pandemic. So they raised a massive round of seed funding from some leading venture capitalists that have just set them up for some really early success and continue to go about solving the problem that they were set in place to solve.

SA: I saw like you also work with like academic institutions?

RL: We had a university endowment come to us and say something to the effect of, university endowments are asset managers, right? They are exposed to VC, they invest and they want returns and they want early stage exposure as well to diversify their risk profile. They’re also being pulled by their university is to invest in student and professor intellectual property. That’s really hard to do for a number of reasons. One is it’s super lumpy. You could have a ton of IP disclosure or nothing in a year. Most of it’s not venture-backable. And then a lot of it from a returns perspective are disincentivized from the university model. Meaning universities are great at commercializing devices and molecules, really poor at commercializing software because the skill sets are utterly different. And so the opportunity that they spotted that we’ve now jumped into is if we were to focus on partnering with students and professors at the idea stage rather than at the solution stage, We could avoid the solutions-in-search-of-problems problem, create brand new startups and commercialize them in ways that enable endowments to invest because they’re venture-backable. They have a great entrepreneurial talent in at early stages, but they stay aligned to the mission of the university. We literally are creating the proprietary deal flow that every VC says that they have. We’re building startups on campus. That’s it.

We just launched a fund with Notre Dame, which we’re really proud to announce, of $18 million. The fund is focused on the Catholic social teachings that underpin Notre Dame’s strategy and we’re already kind of digging into our first sprint which will focus on breaking the cycles of poverty. So while you have to be relatively humble, there’s only so many ways that software startups can act there, there are still a ton of low-hanging opportunities that we think that we can make an impact and make for-profit businesses out of that serve all the different actors.

SA: How do you apply business design to the business of high alpha innovation?

RL: We try and dog food as much as we can on our own process, but it’s really hard. I’ll tell you, I have gained a ton of empathy for entrepreneurs. I’ve been startup adjacent in venture capital before, but we ourselves are a startup.

High Alpha Innovation grows through revenue and aligned with our partners in that. We actually just had an offsite recently. Our portfolio management team focuses with founders day one on identifying what their revenue formula is for their business, which is really, really neat. So a revenue formula might look something like price times gross margin equals dollars, and then dollars minus headcount costs equals profit, right? That’s a very basic revenue formula,

When you get the formula correct, though, you can realize what the key levers of growing a business are along the way. And so we just dove in and defined our own revenue formula for our business that helps us to understand: how do we price and package? When you kind of put together the whole formula, you’re like, oh, those are the five levers I ought to be, acting on in my business. What experiments should we put underneath those levers that we can continue to go about unlocking new growth opportunities from?

SA: What tools and frameworks are you using? And then what artifacts are you actually generating beyond the classic slide deck?

RL: The process I want to talk about actually is Sprint Week. One of the things we realized is that all businesses have momentum inside of them that needs to be broken with forcing functions. So funny enough a fund has to start 12 businesses in three years. And yet after we launched business number one, it was easier to support the operations of business one than it was to start business two. And we said, shoot, we need a forcing function. Otherwise we’re never going to yield for our investors what we want to do. And so Sprint Week was born out of that and it has continued to iterate for the last almost decade since then. For us Sprint Week is about taking a really well framed problem and then designing the product and then business model that go around that.

It’s a three day intensive that we kind of deep dive into. And then on the fourth day, we pitch these decks with the idea that on the fifth day, we’re actually deciding which of these businesses that we’ve pitched goes forward. And success is multifold, right? Getting to the far side of Sprint Week and saying, this is an investible concept is success.

The assets that come out of Sprint Week look very, very much like you’d expect in just about any pre-seed pitch deck. We’re looking for a really good understanding of who our customer is. We’ve spoken to, at that point, dozens of folks inside of our ideal customer profile. So there’s something that looks like a persona. We have a really good understanding of what the job to be done is and why that is a priority to them. That usually gets told in a really compelling story that includes kind of a why now for that problem. Why is this moment the moment that customer jobs have become reprioritized in some way or another. What’s the secret by which this business knows something else about the world that other people have overlooked? Then we end up in a product. We really, really like to tell the future state in visuals. I think folks tend to underestimate the power of visual design as well inside large organizations.

We show the product, we show the faces of the people using the product, and we step through click by click, not as the full movie, but as the sizzler rail for the movie, if that makes sense, illustrating the key value props along the way. And then we talk about the economic model.

We have this kind of quirky thing that we call the nautilus, which, if you think about the way the shell expands on itself, we’re asking ourselves questions of how does this business get to 100K in recurring revenue, a million, 10 million, and a hundred million dollars. And some people call that a reverse P&L. But what it forces you to say is, okay, if I have 100K with only two customers, that’s 50K a customer. Great. Who are those two customers? Back to personas. How do we access them? Who buys? How efficient is that going to be? And then 50k, wow, that’s a lot of money in recurring revenue for a product, right? How long will the sales cycle be on that? What does the quality of the product need to do in order to yield 50k in recurring revenue? And so that sets your product roadmap. And then, of course, your product roadmap sets your team capabilities. And then your team capabilities set your investment needs. And so even basic crayon math like that, it’s so funny. You can get so many design decisions.

SA: What’s your advice for people designing businesses, either internally, as we’re talking, within a big organization, or your classic entrepreneur — what would you share to keep them going and to be successful?

RL: Different words of advice probably for different people. So for entrepreneurs, I think the number one thing is, be in market and learn. Build in public, learn alongside customers. It’s totally critical to ship before you’re ready and test your hypotheses, especially the hypotheses that you’re most scared of. And what that requires is forcing functions, that you stop working in the business and start working on the business at a regular pace, which I say with a high degree of empathy, right? Being in a startup ourselves, it is hard.

And then, I think that the idea of these business design skills of product management, of human-centered design are still very radical inside big corporations And I spent a lot of my time inside big Co’s with folks who are not used to emergent strategy. They’re used to deliberate strategy. We’re going here, we’re gonna get there from here to there. And in most of these spaces, we actually don’t know what we don’t know. And deploying tools like this really, really effectively allows you to ship case studies of success in really, really small ways that gets you the permission to be able to go do bigger things.

You’re not walking into the CFO and saying, I need 2 million bucks. You are saying to your direct boss, I need 20K to launch these three experiments. And then I’m back on the other side with data of what we do next as a result.

SA: Thank you so much for being here, Ryan — I loved this conversation. For more info about High Alpha Innovation and their business design work, visit highalphainno.com.

Sam Aquillano is an entrepreneur, design leader, writer, and founder of Design Museum Everywhere. This post was originally published in Sam’s twice-monthly newsletter for the creative-business-curious, Business Design School. Check out Sam’s book, Adventures in Disruption: How to Start, Survive, and Succeed as a Creative Entrepreneur.

Header photo: Unsplash+ in collaboration with Pramod Tiwari.

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