Chapter 6
Managing Creatives
Creatively Managing Creative People
Managing people is an art form, and design project managers need this skill. They need to be able to determine and implement budgets and schedules, as well as handle the people on the team.
Managers working with creative directors and design firm owners need to utilize the workforce in a way that results in great creative and maximum productivity—two things that can seemingly be at cross purposes during certain projects. Productivity, broadly speaking, is output per hour of labor or work. The highest cost on any design project, or for the design firm, will always be the design team’s salaries. So, in graphic design, it’s all about utilizing the team’s abilities in a way that consistently allows for the best, most useful, and creative output possible.
Choosing a Leadership Style
How you lead is a function of your temperament, character, beliefs, style, and situational circumstances. What works at one time may not work at another. Understanding some basics about leadership styles will provide you with choices.
Some forces that influence the leadership style to be used include
• How much time is available for the project or task at hand?
• Is the relationship with the group based on respect and trust?
• Who has the relevant information?
• How well trained or expert are the group members?
• Are there any internal conflicts?
• What are the group’s stress levels?
• Is the task structured or unstructured, complex or simple?
In the 1930s, social psychologists at the University of Iowa, led by Kurt Lewin, identified three styles of leadership based on decision making. Their experiments with groups of children working on arts and crafts projects showed that human behavior is a product of a person’s internal make-up, but it is greatly affected by the dynamic environment the person is in. These styles and expected outcomes are described on the opposite page.
Leadership Style
Case Study in Managing Creatives:
Umbrella Design / Mumbai, India
Umbrella is a specialty design house, one of the very few in India. Umbrella’s portfolio consists of corporate identity, retail design, advertising, and corporate communications. The firm is led by Managing Director Bhupal Rhamnathkar, Executive Creative Director Deven Sansare, and COO Farhad F. Elavia. Umbrella has worked with top international and regional clients, and often acts as a launching pad for young talent. “We’re a relatively new company,” explains Sansare. “Given that we are small and independent, we tend to prefer younger designers who are affordable. Our approach is ‘Take what you get and train and guide them.’ Mentoring then becomes a necessity. Using freelancers has been a part of the setting-up strategy.”
Pallavi Jaikisshan
Pallavi Jaikisshan is a noted Indian fashion designer, known for bridal dresses, often with an intriguing take on conventional styles and structures. Jaikisshan’s collection is aimed at giving a modern flavor to bridal traditions. Asked how that is achieved, she replies, “Most of my dresses look like classy evening gowns. I give them a twist without ignoring Indian sensibilities.” Umbrella worked with Jaikisshan to create an identity and ads for the brand.
ABOVE
“We were hired to do the logo,” explains Sansare. “The script typography takes its inspiration from wedding invitations often seen in India.”
RIGHT
Once the new identity was created, the client asked Umbrella to design ads for her latest collection, which included nonbridal collection apparel. The choice of non-Indian models in the ads reflects the premium and desirability of Western-looking faces to sell products to Indian consumers.
“It began with a phone call,” recalls Sansare. “The marketing director of Marriott Group in India wanted to combine monthly and bimonthly newsletters that various properties send out into one quarterly magazine. We made our first presentation a week later, not just as designers but as a team that understood brand Marriott. We suggested the nature of editorial content, the kind of advertisers to target, and names for the magazine. Every recommendation was based on the Marriott proposition ‘Spirit to Serve’ and its image as a luxury brand in India.”
The creative team suggested the name U because it captured the customer-centric proposition of the brand. The editorial content suggestion, summed up in this one sentence, “We should not talk about holidays to exotic islands but about how to buy an exotic island,” was also accepted by Marriott. Then, while the client scouted for an editorial team, Umbrella got down to designing the masthead and cover design.
“We concepted with the photographer, stylist, and costume designer, to shoot a Bollywood actress for the cover and other models who would be shot in the various properties,” explains Sansare, “all while our designers were trying to crack a design for the editorial sections that would be dictated by fixed column widths (like any other magazine), and yet be dynamic enough to change with every issue.
A team of three designers worked on the Marriott U magazine—one senior, two junior—and all reported to Ramnathkar. Two writers were involved: a junior and a writer-creative director (Sansare). The project was coordinated by a senior account executive. Umbrella also created the print-ready artwork and their print and production head coordinated with the paper suppliers and printers.
Case Study in Managing Creatives:
Umbrella Design / Mumbai, India
Bates
Bates is an advertising agency born in Asia. In fact, its full name used to be Bates Asia. With time, it was taken over by international advertising giant, WPP Group. Bates had been creating subdivisions to keep in step with the rapidly changing mediascape and the emergence of digital media so that it could offer clients an integrated communication solution. 141, from one-for-one, was one division that was involved in new media activation, a business that Bates saw as the future. Soon after, Bates decided to drop the “Asia” suffix and replace it with “141” in what it saw as a combination of its brand equity (Bates) and its future focus (141).
Asia-devoted marketing communications network operating in fifteen countries with twenty-two offices. The Bates 141 philosophy is centered on “change,” with the agency calling itself “The Change Agency.” This philosophy is based on the agency’s ability to change consumers, channels, tastes, and values by changing mindsets and behaviors. The company calls the region in which it operates “The Asias.” This is to recognize that the region is home to more than half of the world’s population, and as such, sweeping generalizations should not be made about the people who live there.
BELOW AND OPPOSITE
The visual identity comprises repeating eyes with one set facing the other direction, expressing Bates 141’s vision of “Change happens when you look at things differently.”
Managing Creative People at Umbrella Design
“We work on two insights, really,” says Umbrella Design executive creative director Deven Sansare. “Here are some things we consider:
1. Good creative people are highly competitive. When they see their boss do great work, it usually brings out the best in them
2. Everybody needs a father and mother. If they believe that their failures will be shouted at but accepted and their successes will be rewarded, then most of the time you don’t really need to ‘manage’ them.”
Case Study in Managing Creatives:
Umbrella Design / Mumbai, India
BELOW AND OPPOSITE
Another challenge Umbrella took on for Bates 141 was to extend the identity to individual office environments. “We took the easy way out: We chose the Mumbai office for the pilot,” admits Sansare. “Its interiors were designed in coordination with an interior designer and under our supervision. This office design then created a template for the other offices to follow. So far, the Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, and Vietnam offices have been redesigned.”
“One of our clients is a company that cuts, polishes, and exports diamonds,” says Rhamnathkar. “It has two other subsidiaries. One manufactures and exports diamond jewelry; the other manufactures it and supplies it to retailers in India. They tied up with a Kerala-based chain of jewelry stores and launched their own brand of diamond jewelry that would have its own section in these stores. The long-term ambition was to have exclusive stores for the brand. Our initial task was to come up with a name. We came up with one that was based on a fact and a feeling—Fact: You find diamonds in a mine. Feeling: Pride that this piece of diamond jewelry is mine. The brand name: Mine.”
BELOW
Umbrella created a presentation that consisted of
1. The brand graphic created using the distinctive circle in the Mine logo
2. A color and texture palette
3. Material recommendations
4. Brand guidelines
5. Reference images
This presentation became the foundation of the brief to the interior designer that worked on Mine’s retail environments. That gave the client tangible parameters to judge the store layouts, design, displays, and materials. From then on, it was a simple supervision job for the design agency and the client. The first exclusive Mine store is in Bangalore.
Working Well Together
Many design teams don’t clearly understand each other’s roles and responsibilities. Some don’t have the benefit of good leadership and management. That needs to change to both gel as a team and be able to do great design. Everyone on the design team needs to hold each other accountable to achieve optimum performance.
One of the realities of graphic design is that as projects move from concept to completion, they are in the hands of many experts—or in the case of a solo freelance designer one person is performing a variety of activities. Traditionally, the design work flow starts with the highly creative expert and ends with the highly technical expert. Experience and skill levels vary, but so does specific design expertise. Those who come up with great ideas can’t always execute them. Different skills are required as the process progresses from rough idea to finished piece. A designer should explain this to the client, but also make it clear within the design team. Projects are usually better served when handled by the team member with the most expertise in that phase of work. This disaggregating of design tasks allows the best person to be focusing talent on a particular aspect.
This chart shows the major roles of most design teams. Obviously, larger multipart projects could require additional people (more people in these roles, plus others such as illustrators, photographers, animators, and programmers). Design teams must understand that they will be working collaboratively with numerous people, often with different views of the project. Here again, respect is key.
Outlining a Team’s Responsibilities
Case Study in Managing Creatives:
Sterling Brands / New York, New York, and San Francisco, California USA
Sterling Brands is a leading brand and design identity firm, formed in 1992 with a staff of ninety professionals in the United States. The firm has been responsible for branding some of the most well-known products in the world. Sterling Brands also has affiliate offices in Singapore and London and is a member of the Omnicom Network.
Stop and Shop: Simply Enjoy
To launch a new premium line of private label products, Stop & Shop, a leading U.S. supermarket retailer, asked Sterling to create a new name and package design that would clearly distinguish the brand from other private label products, as well as from other premium products on its shelves. “We named the line Simply Enjoy to articulate the idea of great food made simple and created a sophisticated design that highlights each product’s premium ingredients,” explains Debbie Millman, president of Sterling’s Design Group in New York.
BELOW AND OPPOSITE
For Simply Enjoy, Sterling Brands provided innovation including developing the brand name, architecture design, packaging, identity, signage system, and guidelines.
Case Study in Managing Creatives:
Sterling Brands / New York, New York, and San Francisco, California USA
Pepperidge Farm
Sterling worked with long-time client Pepperidge Farm in redesigning its signature Distinctive Cookies line to help increase its equity as the primary brand for premium, casual entertaining. To contemporize and elevate the attributes of the line, photography showcases the unique shape of the cookies, while accent garnishes reinforce flavor and distinguish each variant. The iconic white background is elegant and warm, reflecting the brand’s heritage.
Ben & Jerry’s
Unilever wanted to refresh the iconic Ben & Jerry’s ice cream brand by redesigning the packaging graphics for the product line. The major goal was to clarify the various Ben & Jerry’s line segments, flavors, and products, while retaining valued brand equities. Sterling’s contemporary, revitalized package design brings back the heart and soul of the brand, creates a stronger presence for the brand in the freezer cabinet, and makes it easier to find the individual flavors.
“Our internal culture is a critical aspect of our business. It is the most unique and enduring quality about Sterling Brands. Like all successful project-based businesses, we have a high metabolic rate that energizes and inspires our clients.”
—Debbie Millman, president, Sterling Brands Design Group
To launch celebrated makeup artist Mally Roncal’s line of cosmetics, Sterling Brands created a design that blends attributes reflecting a feminine style with an edgy and sassy sensibility. This approach reflects Roncal’s personality and sense of style. The visual toolbox developed for the brand includes soft pink and green hues combined with a snakeskin texture.
Case Study in Managing Creatives:
Sterling Brands / New York, New York, and San Francisco, California USA
Benjamin Moore
“On an on-going basis, Sterling helps Benjamin Moore redefine the paint category and connect with the people who live with their brand every day,” explains Millman. “We have developed names and package design for such innovative subbrands as Ben, Aura Exterior, Natura, and the contractor program, Inside Edge. Each name and design considers the lifestyle choices consumers make as they turn to this brand—as a catalyst for their creativity and as an expression of their style.” The products shown here reflect Sterling’s recent work, which included innovation, naming, visual and subbrand strategy, identity, and package design.
Giving Feedback
Do
▸ Give feedback when asked.
▸ Consider your response carefully before speaking.
▸ Be specific and concise.
▸ Tie objections to a clear rationale; put comments in context.
▸ Notice the body language of the person you’re talking to.
▸ Encourage discussion and useful debate. Make sure the person understands your feedback.
▸ Think of solutions or alternatives if invited to participate.
Don’t
▸ Get emotional; keep it professional.
▸ Attack the person; challenge his or her thinking instead.
▸ State opinions as though they were facts.
▸ Walk away if the person wants further discussion.
▸ Get defensive if the person doesn’t like your feedback.
▸ Demand it be done your way simply to power-trip someone.
▸ Provide a new solution or alternative if it isn’t your job to do so.
BBC2 designed by Guilherme Marcnondes / Los Angeles, California USA + São Paulo, Brazil
Brazilian-born Guilherme Marcondes has worked with a number of stellar design studios around the world, creating work that blurs the frontiers between genres, techniques, and media. “I think it’s more inspiring when things fall between traditional definitions,” Marcondes says. “When you do something and you can’t explain if it’s ‘animation’ or ‘film,’ if it’s ‘humor’ or ‘horror,’ that’s when it starts to get interesting for me.” That’s what he did for BBC2 television network spots to promote Bruce Parry, one of the network’s most popular show hosts.
This spot was one in a series of six (each directed by a different person) promoting some of the hosts of BBC2’s popular shows. “I love the miniature approach, with its rustic metal parts and plastic plants, lending this piece a tactility that cannot be matched with any high-end 3-D/VFX wizardry,” says Marcondes.
Marcondes concepts the idea behind his films first, then chooses a combination of techniques to achieve his vision. “This spot was for Bruce Parry, who presents some wild reality shows, such as Tribe and Amazon,” he says. “My job was to create a visual interpretation of Bruce’s concerns about the environment and life in a materialistic society.”
These images show behind-the-scenes and early production material from the Bruce Parry Identity for BBC2. “We built the ‘ultimate exploitation machine,’ powered by human beings, ravaging the land, sucking nature on one side and spitting out consumer goods on the other,” says Marcondes. “We placed the scene inside a mirror box to create a sense of boundlessness to the destructive process imposed by the machine.”
Marcondes’ work is rich in texture and symbolism. It is both bizarre and beautiful in its hybrid of storytelling techniques.
The spot for Bruce Parry took about forty-five weeks to accomplish—three weeks for preproduction, one day to shoot, and two weeks for postproduction work.
“My client was into the idea, so I didn’t have a lot of challenges on the creative front. Close to the delivery date, I had some problems with BBC2 executives, complaining that the spot turned out too ‘strange.’ I had to make some last-minute changes I disagreed with, but it turned out okay. I learned that you have to push the limit right at the beginning of the project. The tendency is that it becomes more watered down as you move into production.”
—Guilherme Marcondes, designer/director
Perfectionism
Perfectionism is about striving to be the best. In its healthiest form, perfectionism can drive a designer toward new and exciting work. When it is unhealthy, however, it leads to obsession and anxiety.
Since so many graphic designers regularly experience a kind of perfectionism, design managers need to have a working understanding of the condition and a plan to circumvent it. There’s sometimes a fine line between healthy and unhealthy drives toward perfectionism and graphic design. Here are some of the pros and cons.
Pros:
• Adaptive perfectionists are healthy, focused strivers, and very alert.
• People with obsessive personality types are into perfectionism. They are focused. This is not to be confused with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which is a clinical psychological disorder involving various ritualized behaviors.
• These people get a sense of pleasure from their work, especially their painstaking efforts.
• They are often workaholics who are high achievers.
• They are very motivated and persevere in the face of obstacles and discouragement, which can be inspiring to others. They are committed to overcoming roadblocks and pitfalls that stop others.
• They pay meticulous attention to detail, a commitment that pushes them toward excellence.
• They’re driven to make reality match their concepts.
• They want to be the best. They are vigilant and dedicated, and possess high personal standards and lofty expectations about themselves and their team’s abilities.
• They strive for excellence, and enjoy achieving that excellence and feeling good about accomplishments and lessons learned, all of which works to deepen their confidence.
• They’re tough on themselves and others, but are not afraid to fail. They take informed risks and push themselves.
• They’re incredibly productive—they are always in action and ready for new challenges.
• They are okay with trial and error on the road to success.
What it means to a design manager:
These people can be inspiring. They have an ideal, but accept that it is a guideline or goal to propel the team forward. They are not defeated if these goals are not achieved 100 percent. It means they are still achieving above and beyond what others who don’t go for it achieve.
What to do:
Encourage their playfulness and willingness to tackle a big challenge—that’s the breeding ground of innovation. This kind of perfectionism boosts creativity. However, monitor the situation carefully, and make sure the drive toward excellence doesn’t become a perfectionism trap. Keep them focused on the creative brief. Always remind the team of their goals. Applaud meaningful results.
Quality Control and Quality Assurance
Designers are driven to do great work. The pitfalls of perfectionism notwithstanding, collectively, graphic designers seem to want to create powerful and aesthetically pleasing designs that work hard to meet clients’ needs and support business goals. It’s all about quality. In graphic design, quality refers to the client’s, the designers’, and even the design industry’s expectations.
Lack of quality in design projects causes
▸ Wasted time
▸ Additional revisions
▸ Increased costs
▸ Decreased team morale
▸ Unhappy clients
To ensure quality in their work, designers may wish to employ a quality control (QC) and quality assurance (QA) program.
QC is about the standard operational activities a company uses to control the quality of its product or service. Some things include
• Clear direction and decision making
• Constant supervision by experienced managers
• Reviews of work for accuracy and completeness
• Accurate documentation of recommendations, decisions, and assumptions
The goal of these procedures is to make sure the work is done right the first time. QC is about inspection and review.
QA confirms that the QC program is effective and ensures that the product and services meet the company’s requirements for quality. QA
• Enforces QC standards
• Helps the company make continual improvements
• Reduces errors and omissions
QA is about planning and prevention. It is ongoing and keeps the design firm in top form.
Taking Responsibility for Quality
Practically speaking, a design manager is often responsible for QC and QA in the sense of setting up a work flow system and checking for accuracy and completeness of that work. This person can also monitor, review, and report to external and internal stakeholders. However, usually the creative director has the final say on whether the work meets creative quality standards. Often, this is pretty subjective. The more the design can be judged and evaluated on objective criteria, the more likely quality is achievable. The creative brief becomes not only the road map for schedule and budget but also an essential QC/QA standard.
Clients and QC/QA
Graphic design has informally adapted to QC/QA. When a client’s input and guidance are solicited in development of a creative brief, the client is helping to write a QC plan. Then when the client is involved in a series of milestone reviews as the project progresses, they are essentially participating in QA. One of the main reasons graphic design is an iterative process, with client input and feedback solicited at specific points, is to ensure their review so that quality standards are set and met.
Designers can tell their clients this, and frame their design process in QC/QA terms at the start of a project. If this language and management concept is meaningful to the client, speaking in terms of QC/QA can solidify a client’s impression of their design consultant as a bona fide businessperson who possesses artistic and business acumen. This can lead to trust. Warning: Not all clients respond to this kind of language. Some think it’s silly, or perhaps haven’t even heard of the concept.
Kama Sutra Company designed by Chase Design Group / Los Angeles, California USA
Kama Sutra Company
Since founding Chase Design Group in 1986, Margo Chase has consistently led a creative team that has produced award-winning work in many areas of design. Recognized worldwide for her skill with custom typography and identity development, Chase is dedicated to creating client success through high-quality, intelligent creative. Her vision provides the fuel for Chase Design Group’s growth and achievement. When Kama Sutra first came to Chase in 1989, it had been through a packaging update that had missed the mark. Sales had eroded and the brand was consistently unable to break out of the adult market into more mainstream gift and specialty retail. The original product, launched in 1965, had an authentic look and a loyal following that had been lost. Over the years, Kama Sutra engaged Chase to help regain lost loyalists and find new ones through the development of packaging and marketing materials for new products.
BELOW
The key to repositioning Kama Sutra was to move the brand away from its “aging hippie” roots and adult (sex) market associations to appeal to a more mainstream consumer. Kama Sutra needed to look appealing and credible, but not overtly sexual. The Kama Sutra brand name evokes the romantic exoticism of India, and this was leveraged in the design so that mainstream gift retailers would not feel embarrassed to display the products in their stores. To fulfill on the equity of the brand name, hand-painted tapestries imported from India became the inspiration for the new design direction.
BELOW
The redesign started with a core product overhaul that retained the equity of the original bottle and tube shapes. A new logo, combined with a bright green and gold tapestry pattern, gave the brand a rich, authentic feeling. Indian-inspired floral designs and bright colors helped make the products appealing and distinct. In addition, products grouped in new gift tin designs helped Kama Sutra break into gift and mass markets, increased sales exponentially, and positioned the company for further expansion.
BELOW
Kama Sutra does no advertising, so direct mail and in-store marketing materials are key to educating consumers and helping them discover new products. Wholesale product catalogs help retailers understand the brand through consistent copy tone and product descriptions. Product displays and fixtures help retailers display the full line and introduce new products in a brand-consistent manner.
“I don’t feel that there are many designers in the world who are really good at understanding strategy and then are able to translate that strategy into design. There are design firms that do well in one or the other, but few can do the magic that happens when the two come together.”
—Margo Chase, founder, Chase Design Group
