Week 07 - Global Studios
Approaches and strategies for working today and delivering creative services
You will be working towards achieving the following learning outcomes detailed in Brief 2:
LO1: Research – select and deploy appropriate research methodologies to inform the needs within a project.
LO4: Distil – position a creative strategic insight that has been distilled and refined through an informed investigation.
LO5: Imagine – deliver appropriate and innovative ideas that embrace risk, have contemporary relevance and question the boundaries of the discipline.
LO8: Design – realise a final solution that evidences its strategic journey and clear relationship between form and function.
LO9: Communicate – communicate effectively in a range of contexts and situations to specialist and non-specialist audiences.
L10: Manage – demonstrate applied planning and organisational skills to support self-directed project work and inform ongoing professional development needs.
Introduction by Susanna Edwards
This week we’re looking at different studios and positioning on how they chose to build their businesses more globally. This will cover the need to be able to respond to local markets, or service global clients virtually on a 24-hour timeframe. This very issue, we would suggest, sits at the heart of the considerations for this course, and raises the question of cultural insight and design for local needs in a global context.
As working locally is not so much an issue anymore, points to consider include:
How will future graduates be recruited on a global scale?
How will remote and global employees integrate with their design teams?
Does it matter where they are based?
Will richer cultural understanding benefit global design?
How might technology support greater diversity and opportunity for design thinkers around the world?
Lecture 1: Introduction -
Part 1: Featuring: Kenjiro Kirton Hato
Former St Martins, Graphic Design Graduate, Ken Kirton is co-founded Hato with Jackson Lam. They started freelancing 2009 in the peak of the recession and their principle approach when starting their practice was not to just be a service Industry sitting in front of a screen but to have more of an engagement with communities, culture and society.
He discussed how they bought a risograph printer in their final year to discover how the press could become a support structure for their community - not just the creative support structure nearby but also the local community.
Kenjiro Kirton Hato
“I think our values are really founded around craft, community and education. That comes from the extent of designing tools to help other individuals be more creative, or to think in a different way, and we see the printing press as one of those tools, as well as that design studio.”
This made me think about Brief 2 and some of the principles Ken had talked about. Building a culture is all about listening to the local community and allowing them to inform their method of working.
How can I bring what/who I’m designing to the heart of my design practice?
How does my design contribute to a positive change for the community and the group I’m working with?
Part 2: Featuring: Axel Peemoeller and Rita Matos, New Studio
Rita Matos is a designer from Lisbon, Portugal and showcases a collaborative online approach with Axel Peemoeller based in New York.
Lecture 2 Introduction
In the second lecture, we look at case studies from our usual Practitioners, who discuss and look at the opportunities and benefits of operating globally on an international market and the future of the Industry.
Question 1:
How will globalisation and advancements in technology affect graphic design education?
Simon Manchipp (Someone) discusses how with global design, you’re exposed to a larger variety of people and cultures, with whom you don’t come into contact, within your regular creative sphere and also education in design is expanding creatively from just honing in on a particular skill set, they are multi-disciplinary designers in a variety of areas. he also discusses how with technological advances you are able to visually get the idea across to your client. Minimal Viable Products, the MVP approach, is applied to a lot of digital thinking, where you get things that work enough to prove the product. He say that with global pathways and communications opening, we are now able to look forward to the more opportunities that present themselves and researching the intricate details of projects online rather than looking back to the past traditional methods or in old design archives.
Sarah Boris discusses we stay constantly connected with the advances in technology especially through social media (Instagram). She says by being a small practice, has allowed her to connect globally, but also reminds us how important it is to get out and meet people and interact with them, instead of staying behind your computer screen!
Adrian Talbot (Intro) reminds us of the course we are on (!) and how this is beneficial to global students in so many ways but thinks we are on a massive learning curve.
Sam Winston thinks technology and global education will have massive benefits but also has concerns about how do you embody information. For Sam he believes that this isn’t done through the screen and should be done through, knowing it through diligence, perseverance, trust, common sense, sense of humour, trying things out…
Question 2:
What do you think the creative opportunities are for students studying on global online course, such as the MA in Graphic Design at Falmouth?
Simon Manchipp (Someone) champions the Falmouth courses as one of the best courses for creativity in the UK with its can-do attitude and the possibility of mass student participation or collaboration where actually you end up with an incredibly rich dialogue and positivity. With everybody globally contributing from their own perspective from a variety of different countries and skillsets means that education is now moving beyond referencing the past material that is often repeated in education time and again, and we’re moving towards a can do attitude that brings together execution and ideas in a kind of supermassive, collaborative sense.
Sarah Boris thinks global students will be more open-minded and diverse in their approach to graphic design and hope this comes across in the human aspect.
Adrian Talbot (Intro) thinks it is important to still communicate with the other students on the course, especially from different geographical and cultural backgrounds. He thinks an exchange of ideas and as much dialogue is essential for collaboration.
Kristoffer Soelling, Regular Practice Concurs how access to global designers opens up the possibilities to meet and collaborate with people who share your interests and how we can start building a global visual culture as opposed to a local culture. This can only expand our creative possibilities.
Read | Watch | Listen David Turner (turner duckworth) interview
As part of our research material, I looked at the online interview with David Turner. He discusses the evolution of his business between London and San Francisco and his design process. Working across 2 practices with 55 designers which are evenly distributed across the two studios.
When it comes to working together, David encourages the principle of ‘competitive collaboration’ which is getting the designers to work together between studios. They still use the process of a ‘distant design crit’ where creative teams or individuals, review work in progress and provide input. because they do not know who has done what work, and are able to assess the work without the pressures of impending deadlines, client preferences, budget issues etc. He believes the collaborative mixture and exposure to other peoples creative work and feedback is a key reason for the consistently high creative quality turner duckworth has achieved.
David Turner on working collaboratively
“We have a programme where designers swap jobs with a counterpart in the other studio, our planners and account staff regularly collaborate and ultimately Bruce and I have always seen eye-to-eye on what makes great design and so the results are always of the same quality.”
Thursday’s Lecture with Theresa - Global collaboration
This week’s lecture is discussing the Globalism of Collaboration.
How can we work in new collaborative ways? We discuss how every designer has a different take or way of interpreting creative ideas. Thanks to to the advances in technology, the global market is open and geography isn’t an issue anymore.
We discuss collaboration tools
Brainstorming
Communicating
Enabling
Educating
Interacting
Meeting
Mindmapping
Scheduling
Time-saving
Tagging
Tracking
Streaming
We also discuss interaction tools involved in the creative process, such as how are you going to meet (email, teams, zoom, in person), how are you going to share the work - pdf etc), and then courier any final samples or swatches or even a physical visit.
We then look at Olivetti examples from the Design Museum, London and the collaborative disciplines involved.
These involve: Architecture, Graphic Design, Product Design and copywriting to name but a few!
References:
Hato website
https://hato.co/
New Studio website
https://newstudio.studio/about/
Butler, A. (2012) David Turner (Turner Duckworth) Interview, DesignBoom [online]
Available at: https://www.designboom.com/design/david-turner-turner-duckworth-interview/Links to an external site.. [Accessed 11 June 2019]