I attended New Designers today which is currently being held at The Business Design Centre in Angel.
I attended some of the talks which were organised in collaboration with the Design Council today (4th July). Below are some of the notes which can be taken away from them.
12.00: 5 Designers. 5 Disciplines. A few notes from the speakers.
- Be exciting, passionate, appetite for learning
- Energy, buzzing, love hanging out with that person
- Plan, rehearse Time management, how well you can present
- Show exciting breadth of work, build stuff Attention to detail
- Social change
- Success – Do what you’re interested in, know what you’re good at, develop hard and soft skills
- Research is a springboard to ideas
- Need people to understand what they want
- Research and look at people.
- Ethnographic research Opportunity, what can we do with it?
- Be creative in research.
- Looking at existing solutions is limiting.
- Designers define the future
- Have a broad idea of what’s happening and change.
- Adapt, don’t be afraid of new things
14.00: The Design Trust and Clayground Collective
Patricia van den Akker from The Design Trust gave a short digest of 5 essential questions before you start your own design business. Questions are highlighted in bold below…
What is your niche?
Your specialism/skills + target market = your niche
What do you enjoy. What do you love, where is your passion? where do you want to make a change?
What do you do and for whom?
What do you do? Features and benefits of me and my business? What’s my skills, experience? Be specific
What are the benefits for your clients? – what are the financial, emotional benefits of what you offer? What makes your product, service better?
So you want to earn 21k how will you do that? (Approx for a junior designer)
What is the reality of making that money? Jobs are not safe,
A job, design projects, freelance
What kind of business do you want?
How big do you want to go?
> Sole trader/freelancer – big responsibility.
> Partnership/collective – like a marriage, share skills, resources
> Ltd company – looks more professional
How will you get your clients?
- People only buy from people they know, like & trust
- Focus on your niche, be specific on what you’re good at
- Get work experience
- Get referrals
- Approach people directly in a professional and personal way
- Get repeat business, lower your rates
- Spend 40% of time on marketing
15.00: make:good
Process of Design thinking,
Engaging – what is the real problem? Reframe the needs. Define the problem.
Talk to people about change. How do we discover what they need
PROBLEM solving. Ideate make an idea. Understand, empathise with the situation first.
Test and visualise solutions. Prototype them. Storyboards ect. Make it real. Need to try it out.
Feedback. How do you know what you’re doing will have an impact? Speak to end users. Can they test it?
‘Embrace uncertainty’
Try lots of different things and see what works