(upbeat music)
-: You need to be clear about the end goal
what you're trying to achieve.
That's where a strategy comes in.
-: The strategy should feel simple.
It shouldn't necessarily feel obvious,
but it should have a level of clarity
to it that it then becomes useful and actionable.
That's the whole point
of strategy is to serve the design
and make sure that the design we do is more,
meaningful and accurate and powerful than all those things.
So if the strategy is complex
and difficult to understand.
-: It won't work.
-: It won't work exactly.
-: Well, what you're doing is empowering people to be better
on behalf of the brand, whoever they are.
Whether that's the client team,
the internal team or the partners
or the creators who work on behalf of the brand.
You're giving them the tools
and the permission to go make the brand better.
-: It's really important to have the confidence and candor
to question everything.
Question the way that we work, question our processes
but also question the brief
and our clients and what we're being asked to do.
-: Being distinctive and unique is one of the things
that matters most.
I think there's a lot of brands in the world who,
kind of are obsessed with being consistent and ordered
and neat and actually it kind of drives everyone
to kind of look and feel a little bit kind of similar.
-: For every project, you have to find something
that's really unique for them and try to make it
even more special and apparent
for people who interact with the brand.
And that's our job.
And then we come from outside
and try to help the client realize what is very special
about them and deliver on that.
-: Yes.
(group laughing)
-: What they said.
(group laughing)
I think that we hear this phrase used a lot at the moment
but I think there is something really important
about the emotional connection and how it makes you feel.
And I think there's an element of that
that if it makes you feel a certain way,
that it's quite hard for anybody else to tell you
whether you are right or wrong.
And I think there's something
about the work that we do that has a very powerful
it causes a stirring reaction in our clients,
our audience and each other.
And I think we know it when we find it.
And it's not necessarily something that you can do
through process alone.
It is the DB magic
of a certain amount of people coming together.
And when that chemistry happens
you're really, really special.
-: How it looks is very important to us.
We have a lot of creatives
and artistic people and really great designers
and everyone's a creative at the company,
but at the essence of it
it has to work for who we're designing it for basically.
-: I think we get so distracted by creating design
to have our peers in the industry think it's cool.
And I really hate design for design's sake and for designers
and I think we get quite distracted by that.
And I just wish we would always remember who's actually
gonna be using it, not if our friends
are gonna think it's cool, if it's gonna look cool
on a tote bag, boring.
(group laughing)
-: At that point as well, like don't follow the trends.
People don't want to spend money
on rerun in the next five years.
-: You are essentially creating a piece
of design that has to be relevant now
and 10, 15, 20 years in the future.
Which can be quite daunting
if you think about that at the starting point.
But I think if you truly believe
in what you are creating and have the the patience
and care to do it in the right ways
and create something that's robust, you can create something
that'll have the legs that last.
-: I always really enjoy being a little bit selfish
on projects and actually kind of doing what I want to do.
You do the things that you think you're gonna like,
you like them on a base level,
so you ultimately other people will hopefully
like them as well.
-: I think we have to love the work we create
and we have to be like, God this looks awesome
and I'm obsessed with it.
There's the exact perfect zone that we can meet,
which is, it looks amazing and we love it
and it actually works.
And I think when you kind of smoosh those two things
together, that's where you get something
that's really, really magical.
-: Obviously who we're doing it for is really important
but the idea of thinking about yourself in that
is also really a valid aspect of that.
So getting just simply getting excited about the work,
we often talk about going there,
experiencing the brand and if you feel excited
and positive and learn and see the world
through client size, but also the audience's eyes
you might create something that feels really original,
authentic for that brand
and that sidesteps the sea of sameness.
-: A lot of it's about listening, isn't it?
The more you become a fan
of the company you're working with,
the more you understand the people you are designing
with and for,
the more likely you are to find something that is real
for them and and kind of meaningful.
-: And certainly if we work internationally,
we're working in Finland at the moment,
out in Asia, South America, across Europe and so on.
Listening to the client in understanding those cultural
nuances helps us do something that feels very natural
for the audience in those parts of the world rather
than necessarily exporting parts of London to the world.
There's that distinct difference.
-: That can really get in the way when you are in a brief
and your preference, how a font looks over another one
can creep in a little bit and to not let that hinder
what the end goal is.
'Cause I want to make it like a light blue
because I support Manchester City, that's not right.
You know what I mean?
-: There's definitely a level of craft involved.
You might have got to a place that is good
but the craft comes in to make it amazing in different ways.
So like crafting it from lots of different angles.
-: There's also that thing about being original
'cause it's so easy to get to good now.
But the gap between good
and great is actually quite tricky.
So there's an invention or spontaneity
or a little bit of chaos or messiness I think
in the creative process that you get all the insights
you get all the ideas
but you need to leave space for the design to mature
and become something maybe that will surprise you
and other people I guess.
-: Which is the fun bit.
Which I think is the bit that
for me feels almost like sometimes I wake up
and I have to sort of go like, oh yeah,
I actually do this for a job.
This is pretty nuts.
And then that segues into the systems bit
which is can be quite rational.
I know people that just love that and really love
putting a really solid system together.
-: When we create something, we want to make sure
that people will actually use it
in the way that we design it.
So I think a communication, like on the other side
of clients, it's quite important.
-: What matters most?
Clarity of communication, the message
that the brand is trying to tell
to its audience that has to come through.
But after that, the canvas is pretty blank.
You can do what you need to do to get that message across.
(upbeat music)