FLOTspotting :
Joshua Longo

August 28, 2008 | Member's Work
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) [Permalink]

From the Coroflot portfolio of : Joshua Longo
(Brooklyn, NY)

Featured Project : monster skin chair

What Do You Look For in a Designer? : Jason Bacon, UNKL / Big-Giant

August 13, 2008 | Interviews
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0) [Permalink]

1. What do you look for when hiring a designer?
Balance and diversity. Obviously the work has to be great, but so often we meet designers who are very one-dimensional, and don't have the ability to talk about their work or sell themselves. In the end, being a designer is about selling your ideas, whether you are selling your ideas to clients, your peers internally, or to a creative director.

If I had to pick between someone who is an unbelievable designer but can't interact with people or talk about their work, and a designer who is good, but incredible with people and can sell, I'd pick the latter. In the end the work needs to be absolutely solid; however in a studio our size we need a highly versatile staff, and because we spend so much time together, chemistry is very high on the list.

2. Is there a particular "tell" that signals a good or bad fit?
I think the biggest tell for a bad fit is when a designer piles on a ton of excuses while running us through their work, or frames up a project with a comment about how bad or difficult the client was, or how stupid the project itself was. It happens a lot more than it should. I think you can identify challenges within a project, but good designers know how to turn negatives into positives. Sometimes limitations can be a blessing, and showing you have the ability to turn a less than ideal situation into a success is very valuable. We often see people showing work that they don't believe in, only because it was produced. I'm impressed with people who show that work and then follow it up with what their ideas are.

As for a good fit, I love it when people show us personal work. I enjoy seeing who they are as a designer beyond work, and how passionate they are about a creative endeavor that is simply a labor of love. It shows me that they are more than a nine to five designer. We always say that if you are truly a designer it's who you are, not what you do.

Our studio encourages all of our designers to take time at work to create for themselves. It keeps everyone fresh and ultimately it shows up in the work. Some of the coolest work I've seen has been personal. They had a great idea and created something completely amazing because they had to get it out of their head, and it takes a different level of dedication to follow through on a personal project.

Continue reading "What Do You Look For in a Designer? : Jason Bacon, UNKL / Big-Giant" »

FLOTspotting :
Hugh Thomas

August 13, 2008 | Member's Work
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) [Permalink]

From the Coroflot portfolio of : Hugh Thomas
(LA, CA)

Featured Project : Whippet Chair

Staying Creative, As the Only Creative

August 11, 2008 | Articles
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0) [Permalink]

What's the best environment for getting creative work done? For such an important question, it's maddeningly difficult to answer objectively. A more succinct version, from a pragmatic point of view might instead be this: under what circumstances have creative professionals gotten the most work done?

That one's a little easier to address--though still tricky--and in conversation with working designers the answer is most often: "When I was in studio, back in school."

Funny to think that, for all its cobbled-together insanity, the academic studio still represents the most productive space in many of our working histories. When most of us imagine an idealized creative work environment, what we come up with often resembles the bullpen of our school days: a large-ish room full of feverishly working colleagues, chaos, and creativity. Sketches and models and reference materials spread across every tabletop and wall, up to (and sometimes including) the ceiling.

Few of us did the best work of our careers in these spaces, but we did put in incredibly long, impassioned hours there, and joyfully so: something about that environment seems to bring out an energy that we might spend the rest of our careers trying to re-attain. The thrill of learning and exploring certainly has something to do with it, but the element most responsible is almost certainly each other's mere presence: creatives do their best work around other creatives.

Continue reading "Staying Creative, As the Only Creative" »

Climbing out of the Genius Trap: Eight Real Ways to Build Your Creative Skill Set

July 29, 2008 | Articles
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) [Permalink]

How do we go about getting better at what we do, then? The last installment of Creative Seeds was all about being flexible and acknowledging that creative ability can (and should) be endlessly improved. The obvious next step is to make a list; faithful readers are well aware of how much we love making lists here at CS.

For the creative professional eager to make that toolbox brighter and shinier, then, but unsure of how to do it outside of school, here are eight ideas you may or may not have thought of:

1. Start a side project.
Creatives in small studios sometimes remark that their leanest periods are their most productive. When clients dry up, good studios work on their own projects, cranking out spec work, competition entries, skill-building exercises, or simply personal interest projects. There's good logic behind this method, as it not only maintains creative momentum, but can add projects to a portfolio unrestrained by budget or client needs, letting the agency nudge its body of work closer to the sorts of things they'd like to do more of.

The same strategy can work for individual designers, too. Whether you're between jobs, fresh out of school, on break or just underemployed, there's no better time to get started on your dream project. If you've always wanted to design posters, but have been stuck doing brochures for the past year, now's your chance. Ditto for wannabe shoe designers, children's book illustrators, or whatever. Picking something that truly engages and inspires you makes for superior creative output, and real passion tends to shine through quite brightly in a portfolio piece.

The big drawback, of course, is the inherent lack of structure: with no client to dictate needs and schedules, you have to be your own taskmaster. So identify a fictitious client or target market. Write yourself a brief, set a deadline, and get started.

2. Set an effort-based goal.
If you're honest with yourself, you probably already know which tools in your box need sharpening, and setting yourself a specific goal for improvement is the obvious next step. Creative growth can be difficult to measure, so the most effective short-term goals are usually based on effort rather than quality:

-"I will sketch for one hour after work every day until the end of the month."
-"I will design four album covers for a band that I like by the end of the summer."
-"I will learn enough animation to make a one minute movie about my last project by September 1."

Continue reading "Climbing out of the Genius Trap: Eight Real Ways to Build Your Creative Skill Set" »

The Clever Creative, Languishing in the Genius Trap

July 15, 2008 | Articles
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0) [Permalink]

photo: FatMandy

The single most effective way to improve your prospects as a creative professional is to improve your creative skills.

Despite the millions of words of advice and discussion that have been traded on the web over the years about how to market yourself, that sentence is almost certainly the truest, most useful advice you're going to find.

As creatives whose jobs are tightly intertwined with marketing, branding, and other forms of perceptional influence, it's often tempting to focus more on the sizzle than the steak, even (or especially) where our own skills are involved. To a degree, this is useful, as the problem of the talented professional who never scores the right job due to poor self-promotion is a very real one. It's my suspicion, though, that the opposite is more pervasive: the designer, illustrator, or creative director who believes an improvement in self-marketing will always yield greater rewards than simply getting better at what he does.

There are a couple of explanations for this. The first has to do with this tendency among creatives to hyper-focus on marketing; we are, after all, frequently asked to take a weak concept and make it as appealing as possible, through adjustments in its physical design, surface treatment, advertising, packaging, or some other touch point that generates work for us. A missive in the New York Times Business section last week, though, offers an additional reason that's probably even more fundamental.

Continue reading "The Clever Creative, Languishing in the Genius Trap" »

FLOTspotting :
Marjin Van Der Poll

July 15, 2008 | Member's Work
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) [Permalink]

From the Coroflot portfolio of : Marjin Van Der Poll
(Eindhoven, Netherlands)

Featured Project : CM426Merlin

Writing a Creative Job Posting: Eight Ways to Snag to the Right Applicant

July 02, 2008 | Articles
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0) [Permalink]

photo: Splodge

Most of the advice in this column to date has focused on the job-seeker. After all, we've all been one at some point or another, so the appeal is pretty broad and the well of personal experience from which to draw is pretty deep. The creative job market, though, is a two-sided affair, and just as there are plenty of do's and don'ts for the applicant, there are some easily avoidable mistakes that many hiring companies make when embarking on a talent search.

The search process, as anyone who's completed one can attest, is a huge pile of work: not only do multiple interviews need to be prepared for and conducted, but countless portfolios need reviewing, travel and scheduling logistics need working out, references need checking...and that's after the initial job description has been formulated and publicized. Like many labor-intensive endeavors in the creative world, though, much of a hiring's ultimate success depends on the earliest steps. A job that's well-defined is easier to fill, and a job posting (if that's how you choose to publicize) that's clear and compelling can raise your quotient of good candidates dramatically.

Look at an ad from a major player, read it aloud, then read yours. The tone should be different of course, but yours shouldn't sound dumb in comparison. Nobody wants to work someplace dumb.

Coroflot being a job-listing website, we're inclined to focus on the posting step...and we've seen enough of them over the past few years to have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't. So if you're getting ready to look for your next hot pencil, procrastinating about starting the process because it's too daunting, or wondering why you keep getting applications from all the wrong people, read on.

1. Look legitimate.
Formatting, spelling, and grammar are noticed, even by creative professionals. On-line career advertising is great because it's relatively inexpensive, and allows any interested party to post; but this also breeds skepticism. There are plenty of small-potatoes, poorly run, hellhole places to work in the world, and some of them post right next to Apple and Pentagram. Job-searchers have gotten good at paying attention to the hallmarks of a serious, professional employer, so it behooves you to spend the extra couple of hours making sure your ad has them. Look at an ad from a major player, read it aloud, then read yours. The tone should be different of course, but yours shouldn't sound dumb in comparison. Nobody wants to work someplace dumb.

2. Avoid marketing speak.
We're familiar with marketing bullshit--we read it every day, and some of us write it--so you're generally better off playing it straight. Admittedly, a posting from academia, government, or a large multinational corporation is going to come off a standardized template, then get edited by committee to within an inch of its life; applicants understand that and accept it, albeit grudgingly. For a smaller company or an agency, though, something more direct and conversational is usually expected, both when describing the company and soliciting the applicant.

Continue reading "Writing a Creative Job Posting: Eight Ways to Snag to the Right Applicant" »

FLOTspotting :
Efrat Gommeh

June 20, 2008 | Member's Work
Posted by: core jr | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) [Permalink]

From the Coroflot portfolio of : Efrat Gommeh
(Tel Aviv, Israel)

Featured Project : "Mug Lockdown"

Seven Ways to Make Your Business Card Stand Out

June 20, 2008 | Articles
Posted by: Carl Alviani | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0) [Permalink]

Business cards are a sort of great equalizer in the professional world. Everyone has them, everyone exchanges them, and generally speaking, the less important you are, the more say you have in how yours looks. For creative professionals, especially the legions of us who work for ourselves or in a tiny little studio or consultancy, this makes them exciting -- what our personal or small-business brand lacks in name recognition can be made up in creative expression, at least that's the theory.

While I stand by my earlier statement that a good card isn't worth a damn if you don't back it up with skills, interest and enthusiasm, a well-designed one can turn a brief impression into a lasting one. Unfortunately, with the plethora of cards out there, it can sometimes feel like every good idea's been taken already. Maybe so. On the other hand, some are more taken than others, and every creative professional has a duty to jump into a challenge like this with gusto, whether the results are 100% unique or not.

Based on a much-longer-than-expected search through Google Image and Flickr streams, we've boiled some of the most promising business card strategies down into seven types -- with examples -- for your reference, or at least entertainment. If you've been racking your brain trying to come up with that killer card lately, hope it helps. If you think you've got something better, by all means let us know in the comments section. Everyone else, have fun:

1. Extra Slick

This is probably the default mode for the creative professional who wants to stand out: razor-sharp hyper-modern layout, peculiar but thoughtful color selection, heavy coated stock with multiple textures. If done well, this can be an effective strategy, especially for graphic and industrial designers who are trying to convey a cutting-edge aesthetic and technical know-how. Because the clean, modern card is so popular, though, the bar is set high: if you're not a graphic designer yourself, you'll need to hire one, and all those effects don't come cheap.

Caution: Overdoing it with the colors and textures is a quick and easy way to make an expensive eyesore that conveys loud, bad taste; sort of the business card equivalent of dressing head-to-toe in Diesel.

2. Letterpress

Continue reading "Seven Ways to Make Your Business Card Stand Out" »