I travelled to Liverpool to see Olins & Wolff co-founder, Micheal Wolff, talk about his career and the design world. Interviewed by Patrick Burgoyne, Editor for Creative Review.
I took some good information from the talk, here are a few points.
Wolff's three qualities a designer should:
1) Inquisitiveness
2) Curiosity/Imagination
3) Appreciation
"Be bold but not arrogant, too many design firms come across as arrogant and it's not a good thing".
"When presenting to a client, be yourself, if you try to talk and present as a 'designer' and not a person, the clients will respond as 'clients' and not people".
"No one hires a portfolio, they hire a human being".
"When presenting, either
show the client something
or talk, don't do both at the same time, it's confusing".
"Designers need to be aware that they are not dismissive of language in their practice, too often designers are".
"My working partner, Wally Olins, believes structure is the largest expression of identity, however, i believe Culture is the largest expression of identity".
"Insist, don't take no for an answer, if you insist, people will see you".
"The look of something and the meaning of it need to be embraced together".
"A designer needs to investigate the nature of 'liking'".
"Lots of businesses are run by 'blobs'; where they believe money is all that matters, whereas I believe money is a result".
"Businesses are like people, some are shy, some loud, some stupid, some clever".
Don't think your 'right', your designing for someone else, someone else's message".
"There is too much emphasis on winning awards than solving client's problems".
"Sustainability is vitally important in design".
"Can the fututre of greed be afforded?"
All of these points are interesting to hear from a well experienced and successful graphic designer, I particularly admired his point on investigating 'liking', it feels quite an obvious thing to do now.
