Why (and why not) Hire Designers Locally
The internet is a powerful tool. It allows us to communicate with others around the world, no sweat. We stay in touch with our friends and relatives through phone, email, Skype, and more. Yet, for some reason, businesses continue to hire designers locally, even for freelance work.
They may come across a great designer – maybe even the perfect one – but pass up on the opportunity to work with them simply because they’re not within arms reach. Why is it that, given access to all our technologies, we still shy away from choosing proximity over quality?
1. Trust
People who are reluctant to hire designers remotely are often the same people who are uncomfortable with online banking, online shopping, or online dating. There is just something about meeting face to face that establishes an unparalleled level of trust between two people. Despite the vast opportunities the internet has created for us in connecting with one another, online identities are often hidden behind texts and avatars. You want to be safe, just in case, even if the chances of landing a fraud is less than 1%.
2. Accountability
Then there is accountability. Most people are paranoid. What if they don’t do good work? What if they don’t deliver on time? What if they don’t deliver at all? You want the option to hover over their shoulder and make sure the job is done right, even though you know that the chances of actually needing to do that would be less than 1%.
3. Communication
Maybe they’ll do good work, maybe they’ll deliver on time, and maybe they’ll turn out to be an ultra-rare one-of-a-kind superstar. But what if the problem is with you? What if you’re bad with email? What if you can’t get your message across? What if you don’t know how to express what you want over email? What if you don’t know how to provide feedback for their work? Wouldn’t it be much easier if you could circle things on printed paper using the ever-so-reliable pencil?
The above points are all very valid reasons to hire locally, yet, we must also acknowledge that the world is moving, with or without us. Whether we’re comfortable with it or not, online banking, online shopping, and online dating have all become widespread norms. The internet allows us to perform tasks more efficiently and effectively. You can shop for things you would never have access to locally on sites like Amazon, and Mr./Ms. Right might just be half way across the globe. There comes a time when we must escape our comfort zones and open our eyes to the upside of this new world.
Most designers I’ve spoken with say they choose freelancing because of lifestyle freedom. They do it because they can work whenever they want from wherever they want. They do it because as long as they do good work, they can be on a beach in Hawaii sipping on Margaritas. In fact, an increasing number of talented designers are refusing clients that demand a physical presence. Many designers nowadays put a premium on face-to-face interactions. Also, good designers have options, so they can choose to take on a project from you, the demanding micromanager, or an out-of-town client that trusts in the integrity of his/her professionalism. More often than not, you can actually get access to better talent while paying less if you’re willing to look beyond your street corner.
I know this doesn’t resolve the trust issues, but as with the rest of the internet, the infrastructures for online creative commerce are constantly evolving. At Needle, we’re doing a ton of research on breaking down design language barriers (learn more) to increase the likelihood of a good match. We’re also mitigating trust issues by allowing designers to build their online reputation through elements such as ratings and reviews; like what Amazon did for books.
I strongly believe that effort needs to come from both ends. Teams like us work hard everyday to make it easier for employers like you to find the right designer and get the job done, but we can’t do it unless you’re willing to open your mind to new possibilities. So, what do you say?
Post by Michael Cheng
Michael is the Cofounder of Needle, a platform for hiring creative talent. Prior to Needle, he spent over a decade in the creative space as a freelancer, worked at agencies, and founded numerous companies providing creative services. Michael is an award-winning entrepreneur who has been featured on news publications around the world. He is a thought leader within the creative hiring space as well as an active blogger on the subject.
Communicating with Designers: Logo Edition
Have you ever been to a foreign country without knowing their language? If you have, then you’ll know that even the difficulty of the simplest tasks begin to rival climbing Everest. You need to use the washroom, you have no idea how to ask where it is. You want to order, nobody knows what you’re talking about. There’s no doubt that it gets frustrating.
This is exactly what happens when you hire designers.
As if it wasn’t already hard enough to find the right designer, once you’ve found them, you still need to figure out how to work with them. One thing most people don’t realize is that there is a huge language barrier between employers and designers. Having gone through design school, I can tell you that there’s a whole dictionary of industry terms that you’ll never bother to learn.
Did you know that interactive usually means digital which often refers to ui/ux? Or that logo design is a subset of visual identity under a larger umbrella of branding? How about parallax, flat, or 2.0? Design is a restaurant with no menu, so how will you order?
This is a huge topic, so today we’ll just go over logo design. First of all, we must look at different logo styles. In general, they’re divided into Word Mark, Pictorial Mark, Abstract Mark, Letter Form, Emblem, Character, and Web 2.0.
The best method to communicate what you’re looking for is by providing examples. For instance, “I want it to look like the YouTube logo”, works better than you actually describing the YouTube style. It’s also important to express why you like that style in order for designers to grasp your vision. Maybe you like the YouTube logo because it’s glossy and shiny. Maybe you like it because it’s red. Providing examples is just the start, but if you can’t explain why you like something, then designers can’t design it.
Another thing to consider is the personality of your brand. What’re your values? What should your visual identity portray? Consider thinking about where on the scale you fit in each of the brand personalities below:
Last but not least, don’t forget the most important part: Colour. Don’t just pick your favourite colour. Take into consideration what colours mean in the culture that you’re marketing to. For example, here are some common associations in western culture:
Red: Passion, Anger, Vigor, Love, Danger
Yellow: Knowledge, Energy, Joy, Intellect, Youth
Green: Fertility, Wealth, Healing, Success, Growth
White: Purity, Healing, Perfection, Clean, Virtue
Blue: Knowledge, Trust, Tranquility, Calm, Peace, Cool
Black: Fear, Secrecy, Formal, Luxury
Purple: Royalty, Wisdom, Spirituality, Imagination
Orange: Creativity, Invigoration, Unique, Stimulation
Gray: Balance, Sophistication, Neutrality, Uncommitted
Yet, at the end of the day, it’s most important to trust the designer. You obviously hired him/her because you trust them to do good work. They’re the ones with the training and the professional experience, so they probably know what’s best for your brand. Designers are creative in nature. You won’t get your money’s worth if you dictate their every move and restrict their creative freedom. After all, you are paying for creativity, aren’t you?
Post by Michael Cheng
Michael is the Cofounder of Needle, a platform for hiring creative talent. Prior to Needle, he spent over a decade in the creative space as a freelancer, worked at agencies, and founded numerous companies providing creative services. Michael is an award-winning entrepreneur who has been featured on news publications around the world. He is a thought leader within the creative hiring space as well as an active blogger on the subject.
What’s Flat Design?
Flat design is shorthand for a design philosophy…
Think about your computer’s desktop. Or your iPhone’s calculator. Or your iPad’s newstand. Those things are designed to sound, and more importantly look, just like the real-life analogues they’re named after. Do we really need all of those visual cues and extra details? People who advocate for flat design don’t think so.
…that argues for simplicity, clarity, and honesty of materials in user interfaces…
Instead, flat advocates (flatvocates?) argue that GUIs—graphical user interfaces—should eschew style for functionality. That means getting rid of beveled edges, gradients, shadows, and reflections, as well as creating a user experience that plays to the strengths of digital interfaces, rather than limiting the user to the confines of the familiar analog world. In web design as well, “flat” pages rarely introduce dimensionality, shadows, or textures into the equation, relying instead on parallax scrolling and visual clarity to communicate.
A great example of flat design is Google Now, which uses a card-like system to display information brackets. Rather than ghettoizing information inside of static icons, Now displays data on a standard-sized card that’s easy to read and easy to swipe away. Another example? Windows 8, descended from Microsoft’s Metro design language, which values typography—or the delivery of information—over graphics that help the user understand what type of content they’re reading.
…usually couched as a reaction to the problems of skeuomorphic design…
To understand flat design, you have to understand the thing it’s revolting against: skeuomorphism. Skeuomorphism boils down to visual trickery, or the use of details and ornamentation to make one thing look like another. In architecture, false facades are skeuomorphic. In car design, fake wood panelling is. Skeuomorphism in UI design usually refers to a digital element designed to look like something from the physical world. That can mean anything from Pinterest’s “pin board” to the rich leather stitching that boarders Find My Friends.
Examples of skeuomorphic design.
…which uses gradients, textures, and other details to make digital objects look “real.”
Skeuomorphism in digital space dates back to the early 1980s. For example, Apple’s first consumer GUI, from 1984, introduced the concept of a “desktop” and icons that looked like folders and pieces of paper. Back then computer interfaces were a totally foreign concept to most users, which made skeuomorphism a valuable tool. It let designers create visual metaphors between old, familiar objects (a manilla file folder) and a new, confusing tool (a digital file). Skeuomorphs helped us learn.
An Apple Lisa desktop in 1984
But as personal computers became ubiquitous, fewer and fewer people needed those visual cues to understand the function of an icon or button. Skeuomorphism became an overwrought style—a kind of digital Potemkin that cluttered screens and overburdened the user with unnecessary details. And so it became a pariah for a new generation of designers—most of whom don’t remember a world without computers.
This should all sound pretty familiar. Modernists have argued these same basic ideas since the turn of the last century: don’t add extraneous details that don’t support functionality. Do be honest about materials and structure. Don’t create a fake front just to make users feel safe. It’s the same basic war cry of every modern designer since Le Corbusier came screaming into the world. In a way, “flat design” isn’t anything new—it’s just the contemporary shorthand for modernism with a capital “M.”
And what’s after flat?
Though the world is definitely going flat, it won’t be flat forever. We can glean where UI and UX are going, after flat design runs its course, by looking at the last century—during which each wave of modernism revolted against the one that had came before. For example, after the strict modernism of the Bauhaus and the International Style took the world by storm in the 1930s, a second generation of designers introduced the concept of Critical Regionalism into the discussion, arguing that one-size-fits-all credo of early modernists was sort of… reductive. It’s likely that the same thing will happen with interface design. After radical flatness, we’ll probably see designers carefully reintroduce dimensionality where it’s really needed.
But that’s all a few years down the line. For now, we’ll wait and see whether Jony Ive takes the flat design bait, or if he revolts—in which case, things are about to get a lot more interesting.
by Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan via Gizmodo
How to Avoid Fraudulent Designers
I’m ashamed to admit that not all “designers” have the best intentions. Over the years, I’ve come across many Fraudesigners. It’s nasty, but simple. These people go through portfolios, pick out the work they like, and post it on their own portfolio, claiming it as their own designs. Recently, a few of my personal friends found their own work stolen by Nerd Studio. After a melodramatic tornado of bad PR, they’ve removed most of the stolen projects from their portfolio, but I’m surprised they’re shameless enough to keep operating. Imagine all the clients who will pay for Nerd Studio’s services in the future. This is why we should all learn to avoid fraudulent designers.
Portfolios are the resumes of the creative world. Just like how people lie on their resumes, portfolios are no different. The only difference is that stealing digital work is probably 10 times easier than deceiving on a resume. Really, all you have to do is save an image from another portfolio, and upload it onto your own. Many people with fake resumes get hired, but they also tend to get fired very quickly, effectively wasting everybody’s time. Creative work is no different. When you hire someone for the work they’ve done, only to find out they didn’t actually do the work they said they’ve done, you’ll fire them very quickly because the truth will reveal itself swiftly once the work begins. This is assuming they don’t take the deposit and run off in the first place.
So now that we’ve addressed the severity of the issue, let’s talk about techniques to avoid it.
For web design projects, don’t just look at the screenshot. It’s important to actually visit the website. For example, Siena Restaurant‘s website footer states clearly “Website by WittyCookie“. At this point, you can be confident that WittyCookie is responsible for designing Siena’s website.
However, often times fraudulent designers won’t provide links to their web design work. This should be a red flag. They’ll only provide a screenshot, usually to hide the credit to the actual designer within the footer. The even sneakier frauds will actually have a fraudulent link to a the website. A live website should always on the client’s domain, such as http://eatsiena.com, but if you see something like http://johndoe.com/siena, it’s another red flag. Websites held within the designer’s domain means it’s not live and they have the ability to manipulate it (i.e. change the footer).
If you see these red flags, try to Google the website and see if you can find the live version, then look through the footer to ensure that the designer is legitimate. Don’t be afraid to contact the website to ask for verification, 99% of the time clients are more than happy to verify a designer’s work. In most industries, it’s common practice to call references before making a hiring decision. For some reason, this process never really caught on in creative hiring, but it’s very important, especially when you see a few red flags.
Projects such as logos or print design becomes even more difficult to track. They won’t have a footer, and unlike paintings, they won’t be signed either. This is when asking for references becomes extremely important. If this is not an option to you (for whatever reason), consider doing a Google Image Search to find if the piece can be found on any other portfolios. If you see the same project on two portfolios, it’s usually relatively easy to point out the more legitimate one.
As we go deeper, it gets more and more troublesome. At some point, we should begin questioning if there can be a better way to resolve this. What we believe here at Needle is that the creative industry can really benefit from a reputational ecosystem. Online reputations are everywhere, they refer to things like ratings and reviews. Such ecosystems have become driving forces behind the major shifts in a handful of industries. Take eBay for example, where buyers make purchasing decisions based on the ratings and reviews of the seller. In a more intimate example, Airbnb, where you actually sleep in someone’s home and that trust is built entirely through online reputations. In a more relevant example, oDesk, a platform where employers connect with developers to work on programming projects; 100% driven by online reputation.
Yet in the current state of the creative industry, there is weak evidence of such a powerful force at play. Networks such as Behance and Dribbble carry peer-to-peer vanity metrics, such as project likes, views, followers, and comments. Platforms such as Zerply have been experimenting with peer-to-peer endorsements. LinkedIn has a recommendation system, but it’s very job position focused and not project based at all. What ends up happening is that all of these projects get completed without any data (ratings/reviews) generated from the positive experiences. The good designers are not recognized and the bad ones get away with it.
The Needle team strongly believes that this is a huge gap in the industry, and we’re working hard to fill it. We’re still in our early stages, but feel free to drop by (needlehr.com) and give us some feedback.
Posted by Michael Cheng
Michael is the Cofounder of Needle, a platform for hiring creative talent. Prior to Needle, he spent over a decade in the creative space as a freelancer, worked at agencies, and founded numerous companies providing creative services. Michael is an award-winning entrepreneur who has been featured on news publications around the world. He is a thought leader within the creative hiring space as well as an active blogger on the subject.
20 Graphic Designers from Toronto You Should Know About
We demand a lot from today’s graphic designers–not only do they have to be artists: mastering color theory, typography, line drawings, photography; but, they must also be multilingual, computational experts. Whereas yesterday’s designers worked mainly with print, logo and flyer design, today’s designers are expected to create visually captivating websites, mobile apps, videos and animated art through rapidly emerging languages (HTML, CSS, Flash, PHP).
This is why we have immense respect for the following individuals. These Toronto-based graphic designers have mastered the power of language, speaking eloquently through their designs and work.
Andrew & Matt McCracken
Andrew and Matt McCracken, are the well-known dynamic duo behind, Doublenaut. The McCrackens’ have won numerous awards for their illustrative designs from Coupe, Communication Arts and Design Edge Magazine.
Bryan Espiritu
Bryan Espiritu, visionary behind, TheLegendsLeague, an iconic Toronto street brand, is a talented graphic designer, known for some legend-ary popup shows.
Christian Ordonez
Cristian Ordóñez is a seasoned designer with nearly 12 years of experience behind him. His body of work spans various mediums including web design, illustration, photography, and film.
At the moment, Christian holds a senior design position at Concrete and has worked with clients such as Brook McIlroy Architects, the Royal Ontario Museum, and The Lavin Agency, among others.
Clarice Gomes
Clarice Gomes, is a young, up-and-coming designer, with experience designing brochures, convention banners, brand identities, websites and invitations.
Dennis Chow
Dennis Chow, proprietor of, GlamNation, creates illustrations and designs with a distinctive edgy and graphic grit, giving him serious creative street cred.
Evan Melnyk
Evan Melnyk, is the quirky, creative force behind, Curse of the Multiples, specializing in freelance graphic and clothing/product design.
Glenn Michael
Glenn Michael, at Moxy Creative House, is a graphic designer and art director, with an uncanny ability to turn cultural icons and references into beautifully illustrated designs.
Greg Washington
Greg Washington, has a beautiful catalog and portfolio of work, which can be seen on his digital publication, Inquiringmind Magazine, serving as a platform to share anything relevant to the contemporary male audience.
Josh Arndt
Joshua Arndt, is a freelance web designer with notable experience designing corporate commerce, marketing and communication sites.
Jud Haynes
Formerly a musician with the band, Wintersleep, Haynes, is now known for his artistic album covers and t-shirt designs.
Jun Hua
Jun Hua, is an experienced designer, specializing in interactive design, illustration, graphic design and multimedia development.
Justin Broadbent (aka Keith Dungeon)
Justin Broadbent, is an accomplished, Toronto-based, multidisciplinary artist who works with video (including music videos for Shad, Drangonette, Metric), poetry, illustration, web design and installation. Check out his work for Absolute Vodka, here.
Joel Lee
Joel Lee, a Toronto native, is a multidisciplinary and edgy Visual Artist and Art director, known for his well-received campaigns and music videos.
Marian Bantjes
Marian Bantjes, is a designer-artist-illustrator extraordinaire, who works remotely from the West Coast of Canada. She has no local clients and prefers to collaborate with people on interesting, exciting and engaging projects. Notably, Stefan Sagmeister, has called Bantjes, “one of the most innovative typographers working today.”
Mike Busby
Busby, prides himself on building websites, “from the ground up,” with innovative styles and interactive designs that cater to his clients’ needs.
Mark MacDonald
Mark MacDonald, has a clean and clear design aesthetic with the professional skill set and attitude necessary for working with small and large companies.
Nick Bujnak
Nick Bujnak, is a Senior Designer at BBDO Proximity and does freelance & personal work under his brand Partkl. His passion and appreciation for street art, music, fashion and urban living, give his projects a fresh and unexpected appeal.
Raymond Biesinger
Raymond Biesinger is a tireless illustrator who has worked on well over 1000 projects. He creates his graphics by deploying material things, electronic means, and a BA in European and North American political history.
Tyler Galpin
Tyler Galpin, a web and UI designer; and, founder of, Lost Type, a popular pay-what-you-want type foundry, likes to work with historical and contemporary design elements to create beautifully, balanced designs.
Wes Bos
Wes Bos, is a passionate web and WordPress developer who has helped many companies, large and small, develop a strong online presence through beautiful page design and easy-to-use applications.
The Power of Visual Identity
When you’re a small business with few customers and nobody has ever heard of you, how can you grow? We talk a lot about finding early adopters, but of all the choices they have in the market, why would they trust you?
You know your business is awesome. The problem is, nobody else does.
It’s difficult to get visitors to give you their email address, even less of a chance they’ll pick up the phone to call you, and don’t even think about getting them to take out their credit card. No matter how solid your value proposition is, the fact remains, we’re all judgmental by nature.
We often deny this, but we all judge books by their covers.
Young ventures can put a stronger emphasis on visual identity to bypass trust issues. It’s all about presentation. Imagine you meet two surgeons, one dressed in scruffy torn clothes, and the other in a spotless white coat. Who will you take the surgery from?
The visual identity (branding) of your business is essentially the clothes it wears. You’ve spent so much time building its character, personality, and substance. However, for anyone to actually see those things, you’ll need to attract people with some decent clothes, too.
Here are some examples of companies you may never have heard of, but just by looking at them, you just feel like trusting them with everything you’ve got: Wallmob, Koa, Postable, Thankful
Feeling inspired? There are 13,000 brand designers on Needle, check them out!
Posted by Michael Cheng
Michael is the Cofounder of Needle, a platform for hiring creative talent. Prior to Needle, he spent over a decade in the creative space as a freelancer, worked at agencies, and founded numerous companies providing creative services. Michael is an award-winning entrepreneur who has been featured on news publications around the world. He is a thought leader within the creative hiring space as well as an active blogger on the subject.
Why the Design Industry is Rapidly Growing
Ever since the early days of technological inventions, technologists have been competing with one another. Battles span across functionality, horsepower, intelligence, robustness, and more. Techies make things work, and naturally, they compete on whose creation works better. They’ve competed on which device solves the problem more effectively, what features triumph the other set of functions, and so forth.
This competitive environment has led to a decade of ultra-rapid development, especially in digital technologies. For example, there are now 900,000 apps on Apple’s App Store. This (somewhat) new market opportunity created a huge demand for technical talent. More than ever, people want to learn coding. Junior developers are enjoying salaries of 60k – 80k, right out of school.
The result is that functionality has become standard. Everything must work, simply because everything else works. There is no longer excuse for functional shortcoming. As new smartphones come out, we begin to realize that their actual functionality have become marginally different. The competitive metric is no longer “which works best”.
So what is the new secret weapon? Design.
Market leaders (in digital media) these days are seldom those who excel in functionality alone. This is because functioning software has become standard, it has become a simple expectation, and no longer a differentiator by any means. The companies that succeed nowadays are those who tend to invest heavily in design. The winners are those who are absolutely meticulous about every minor graphical detail, every piece of user experience, every corner of visual appeal, and endlessly more. Great examples include Evernote, Mailbox, Clear, Haze, and etc.
The growth (and arguably, plateau) of developers has given birth to a huge demand for designers. Design is the new differentiator. The commercial world has become, literally, design or die. Seldom will you find successful software without offering an absolutely delightful experience. Function was the focus of yesterday, design is the star of tomorrow.
Not only has this trend become increasingly clear amongst startups, we’re beginning to see this on an enterprise level as well. Companies like Google are consistently paying closer attention than ever to the fine touches of design, and Apple continues to pride themselves on designing every single product to be “insanely great”.
How much emphasis do you put on design in your own business?
Posted by Michael Cheng
Michael is the Cofounder of Needle, a platform for hiring creative talent. Prior to Needle, he spent over a decade in the creative space as a freelancer, worked at agencies, and founded numerous companies providing creative services. Michael is an award-winning entrepreneur who has been featured on news publications around the world. He is a thought leader within the creative hiring space as well as an active blogger on the subject.
Needle Featured on Techvibes (again!)
The Next 36 Sends Five Promising Canadian Startups on New York Field Trip to Pitch US Investors
Practice might make perfect when it comes to pitching your budding mobile startup to potential investors, but everyone knows there’s nothing quite like the real thing.
Unless, of course, you’re like a handful of companies from Canada’s The Next 36 entrepreneurial program whose practice involves travelling to New York City to meet with four of the east coast’s top early-stage venture capital firms.
By sending five of its most-promising teams on a two-day trip to Broadway this past June, The Next 36 is applying its proven “learn about entrepreneurship by being an entrepreneur” formula to business development and funding, helping these young companies get both the capital and mentorship they need to grow even after the eight-and-a-half-month-long initiative ends on Aug. 13.
Christian Lassonde, chief venture advisor at The Next 36, coordinated this year’s trip. He set up group meetings with RRE Ventures, Raptor Ventures, Union Square Ventures and Lerer Ventures—tech-focused firms that have backed the likes of Bitly, The OpenSky Project, Etsy, Twitter, BuzzFeed, and Refinery29—in the hopes that two days in the concrete jungle would inspire the entrepreneurs to imagine what their own ventures could become if they broadened their target market beyond Canada’s borders.
“Canadians are like Americans. The two markets act and react almost identically. Why would you not sell to them?” asked Lassonde, who spent nine years in San Francisco as a programmer and serial entrepreneur before joining The Next 36 last year. “[The students] are hearing me bang that drum continuously.”
The trio behind Needle, one of the 12 startups in this year’s cohort and one of the five invited to join Lassonde in NYC, is indeed hearing the music and listening to their advisor.
Since launching less than two months ago, the online portfolio and search engine for creative professionals has begun indexing 60,000 profiles of designers, animators, photographers, copywriters and art directors per day, according to internal statistics. It has amassed a user base of more than 2,000 employers and design agencies from more than 110 countries and profiles from more than 200.
The company, which claims to be the largest searchable database of creative talent in the world, has already garnered interest in their seed-funding round from multiple angel investors at a $2-million valuation. While in New York City, one partner even told Needle’s co-founder Michael Cheng that the creative hiring industry is “wide open” right now.
“It validated what we’re working on and the direction we’re taking,” said Cheng, who added that Needle is now building an integrated messaging system, project and time management tools, and a payment function into the platform. “The VCs are thinking [about] what our company can be worth in the next five years and what we have to do to get there. They were envisioning the potential, and that’s very inspiring.”
Read the full article here.
SEE ALSO: Cohort by Cohort, The Next 36 is Cultivating Canada’s Future Leaders
Good Design is Becoming a Must-Have in the Enterprise, too
SUMMARY: Following the rise of good design for consumer web, mobile apps and gadgets, next up is the enterprise. Company services, apps and hardware are finally starting to get the Apple-style design treatment.
Over the past few years, a wave of consumer web startups focused on design have been making their mark on shopping, fashion, communications and social networking. But, as these startups — from Pinterest to Instagram — become billion-dollar players influencing how consumers use the web and mobile apps, the trend of design as a major tech differentiator has started to infiltrate the world of the enterprise, too.
I found the latest example of this phenomenon in a quiet neighborhood of West London, about a block away from the Turnham Green tube stop, in the office of server monitoring and visualization startup Server Density. Server Density founder David Mytton tells me that the startup, which has 12 employees including two full-time designers, takes as much as it can from design giant Apple.
This is a company that manages data about servers and is selling its service to the folks that are supposed to make sure their company’s servers stay up and running and work efficiently. Not exactly the stuff of iPhones and smart watches. But Server Density is using layouts like heat maps (see image above) to figure out the best way to show the data to the people who need to see it.
As a small upstart in an industry dominated by a couple of big well-funded competitors, Mytton tells me that design is a major way they can compete. It’s much harder for a small startup to compete on the sheer number of features, as features can easily be copied, Mytton explains. But their design, in terms of how those features are implemented, is much harder to copy.
Design for big and small businesses
Server Density is just the most recent company I’ve met with that’s been emphasizing a more consumer-style design for enterprise services. German serial entrepreneur Marco Boerries has been amassing venture capital funds for his startup NumberFour, which he’s hoping will be able to use design to create a platform and game-changing apps — that manage sales, reservation, deliveries, communications — for small businesses.
NumberFour counts Yahoo co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang, computing pioneer Andy Bechtolsheim, Index Ventures’s Mike Volpi and other big shots as investors. NumberFour plans to launch its business apps soon.
But it’s not just well-designed apps that are emerging businesses. Apple-style hardware is becoming more commonplace, too. Mobile payments startup Square has designed payment systems for mobile phones and, more recently, point of sale gadgets in stores. If it’s possible to build a sexy cash register, Square seems like they’ve done it.
As Designer Fund partner Ben Blumenfeld said during our interview with him last month, design is starting to make its way into many new aspects of society, including the traditional realm of big businesses and companies. Influenced by the strong design practices of tech industry leaders like Apple, and accustomed to using new design-friendly services in their personal lives, company employees now expect the same level of usability that they get with their iPhone or with Instagram.
It’s not easy to get the user experience right for company services but, as Mytton told me, it’s more about making it as easy for the customer to use as possible. We’re holding our annual RoadMap conference in November in San Francisco, which will focus on experience design for the tech industry (tickets will go on sale shortly).
by Katie Fehrenbacher via Gigaom
Hiring Designers on LinkedIn.. Yay or Nay?
With over 225 million users, you’d think that LinkedIn will solve all of your hiring needs. Yet if you ask anyone who’s tried to hire creative talent with it, they’ll tell you that it’s the worst place to go. How is it possible that you can’t find designers out of a pool of 225 million people? It’ll make sense if you think about it.
Every creative professional I’ve ever met has their own personal website. For example, Mustafa Demirkent, Adam Rudzki, Michael Heinsen, etc. No matter how professional or amateur, designers always end up building their own online presence. In fact, students who attend design schools will likely have built their own website within the first year of their studies. A personal website is where they upload all of their work, it’s the destination to all of their self promotion, and it’s where they point employers to when looking for work. These personal websites are essentially digital portfolios.
The reason why LinkedIn can never replace digital portfolios is because designers differentiate themselves through unique identities. While a structured format for uploading your resume may work well for accountants or lawyers, such restrictions force all designers to look exactly the same. Imagine walking through the mall and every store looks the same, despite selling different items.
As a designer, imagine you’ve already spent endless hours working on projects with unique flair and vibrance, but would you then put them all into a template cookie-cutter profile on LinkedIn? The answer is… sometimes. Yet, the creative population on LinkedIn remains minuscule (3.3%).
So if not LinkedIn, then where do we go? Is there a “LinkedIn for Creatives” that exists out there? Arguably, you can look at communities like Behance and Dribbble. While there are certainly a ton of creatives interacting on those platforms, they have yet to replace the personal portfolios. Despite having a presence on creative communities, nearly every single user still has their own personal website, and many use these community profiles as a marketing channel to drive traffic back to their personal portfolio.
Perhaps tools like ProSite and Carbonmade are the closest to cracking the puzzle. These are tools that allow you to easily create your own portfolio using simple tools and widgets. However, while some customizations are supported, you’re still more or less stuck within the constraints of the platform. In other words, designers can’t differentiate themselves using these tools. They’re quick and easy, but the showcasing of your life’s work is no place to slack.
At Needle, we’re experimenting with a whole new approach. We’ve seen the creative communities, and we’ve seen the portfolio creation tools. Yet everything seems to point back to the destination: the personal portfolio. It would seem like all the efforts in consolidating this fragmented realm have achieved mediocrity at best. We believe that the key is to stop trying to change the behaviours of designers, to stop suppressing their yearning for self expression, and simply improve the discoverability of their personal portfolio. What we’ve built is essentially a Portfolio Search Engine that works just like Google. We index online portfolios around the world and crawl through the content of all of these websites. Try it out, and let us know what you think of this approach.
Posted by Michael Cheng
Michael is the Cofounder of Needle, a platform for hiring creative talent. Prior to Needle, he spent over a decade in the creative space as a freelancer, worked at agencies, and founded numerous companies providing creative services. Michael is an award-winning entrepreneur who has been featured on news publications around the world. He is a thought leader within the creative hiring space as well as an active blogger on the subject.
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