Our weblog
Updates and articles around our design studio, work, ideas and things we like.
January 30th to February 3rd
The week started with a full house. Philipp came to Hamburg for two days to work with Christophe on Clayoquot. Desk space was scarce, so they both had to clear some of the mess that pilled up in our project/meeting room. Side by side they made first mockups for several interfaces. Michael was working on a little private project which led him astray in the adventurous world of Illustrator. David and I designed some more screens for the re:publica website and new drafts for Snoqualmie.
Also: new chairs!
January 16th to 29th
I skipped the last weeknote because my computer still gave me headaches. Or better: the people, who were supposed to fix it. In my last post I mentioned how good the customer experience in the Apple store Jungfernstieg was when I came there with my broken MacBook. Today I have to report the exact opposite. Because of either incompetence or carelessness of the staff, mixed with bad internal and external communication, I had to go there several times to bring in and pick up my computer. Grrrr…
Now to a more pleasant topic. In the last weeknote I mentioned Snoqualmie, a new project we are very excited about. Today I want to talk about the way the project came into being, because it’s an great example of how to approach and choose a design company.
The client considered two other agencies for this project. From the start they were totally open about this. No secrecy or other tactics. First score for the client.
We asked who those other companies were and they told us right away. We were in good company. Their choice showed that they had a clue about the design landscape. Actually we were a bit flattered, because we have much respect for the other two companies, both bigger, older and better-known than our little studio. Another thumbs up for a fine selection.
In such a situation clients usually call for a pitch – and we usually say thanks, but no thanks. This client, however, did something else to make a decision: they paid a fair amount of money to prepare and conduct a workshop with them. They didn’t expect a fancy presentation with fake “solutions”, but wanted to learn about how the three companies would approach the project. Plus 1!
We decided not to show any visual design at all. Besides concept and interaction design, the visual design is a large and important part of the project and some nice looking screens are often the easiest way to win over a client. But we took the risk to talk about our process and thinking, rather than our ability to make beautiful visual design (which hopefully comes across by looking at the work we’ve already done).
Actually we didn’t just talk about how we work, we showed it. We prepared a rough interaction sketch for the workshop. It was cobbled together in a few hours and it wasn’t pretty (intentionally), but it helped to explore some of the fundamental interaction patterns of this product together with the client. The client’s project team understood this approach and had the guts to trust in us. Another kudos for that.
This all may sound very reasonable (and it is!), but if you are familiar with the design business, you know that this kind of selection process doesn’t happen very often for projects with larger budgets. I could go on why this approach is much superior to regular pitches, why it’s not just better for the design companies but also for the clients, but that would be another blog posting.
Aforementioned Snoqualmie kept most of us busy in the last two weeks. Michael went to Denmark for a meeting with a technical partner. He found himself in a new role – the advocate for design – and seemed to enjoy it.
David and I spent most of our time in Photoshop. We explored some conceptual and visual ideas for Snoqualmie and also did some sticker and website designs for re:publica.
Christophe’s weapon of choice in week 321 and 322 was Keynote. He presented the results of Wapato to the decision makers and flew to Switzerland to talk about the new challenges and possibilities for TV networks and content providers at the Future Media Day. He returned with a lot of new business cards and a bag full of swiss chocolate. When not presenting our work or talking about the future of television, he developed ideas for Clayoquot.
On Friday we swapped computers for scissors, cutters and rubber stamps. We’ll soon show the results. Here’s a sneak preview:
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January 9th to 13th
Friday evening is usually the time I set aside for writing a weeknote. Not this time, as my computer fell into a coma (kernel panic) a few hours earlier. After some futile attempts at resuscitation, I surrendered. My MacBook needed professional help. I pulled out my iPhone, opened the Apple store app, tapped on “Genius” and made an appointment. 90 minutes later I shook hands with Henry at the Genius bar. After running some tests, he had bad news: It’s a hardware problem, it’ll probably cost me 200 to 500 Euro to get it fixed and I will be without my computer for a few days.
No matter how good your product or service is, things will go wrong. In these situations – when a product breaks, a software has a bug, a link on a website doesn’t work – the customer experience is at the most vulnerable point. If you handle it the wrong way – au revoir client. But there’s also a huge potential in such situations. If you manage to turn people’s frustration into something positive, like respect, understanding or amusement, you can strengthen your relationship with your customer.
Although I entered the Apple store with a bad feeling and left it with even worse news, the whole experience – from making the appointment to leaving the store – absorbed much of my annoyance. So when I was riding the bus back home, I thought about how often these situations are ignored. Most products or services are designed for the perfect scenario. Very few energy is spent on the situations when things go wrong. It’s nothing people like to think about, so they often deny it or play it down. But something always goes wrong. We should all keep that in mind when designing experiences.
Ok, enough rambling. Here’s the usual rundown of what we’ve been working on this week:
David, our favorite intern, and Philipp continued to work on Enumclaw. Philipp felt a bit under the weather, so he stayed in Berlin. Nevertheless both got a lot done and almost finished this short project.
Christophe had to wear many hats this week. He spent a day out of office for Wapato, went to a meeting and brainstormed with me for Clayoquot and was also involved with Michael and moi on a new project we started this week.
This project – I hereby name you Snoqualmie – is a pretty special to us. It’s a good and well-known product/brand, a competent and friendly project team and a very interesting industry (publishing). But what made us even happier is the way the project came about. But I leave that for next week’s note.
January 2nd to 7th, 2012
Some people asked where the code names we use in our weeknotes come from. Okanogan, Comox, Wenatchee, Ecola, Yakima, Osoyoos, Sequim, Kootenay – these are all names of places in the Pacific Northwest, most of them with Native American origin. I stayed in or passed these places during two wonderful road trips and I thought that the mystical vibes of these names make perfect cryptonyms.
But I’m slowly running out of names. Which means a) I should go on another trip and b) we might need a new nomenclature soon (any suggestions?).
There are a few more names on my list, though. Let me introduce: Enumclaw and Clayoquot, two new projects we started this week.
Philipp and David took care of the former, splitting work between macro and micro levels and creating complex photoshop documents together. The name Enumclaw means “thundering noise” and let me tell you this much: I didn’t pick this name randomly (it also translates to “place of evil spirits”, which – on the other hand – is definitely not a reference to the client).
Christophe and I had a kickoff meeting for Clayoquot. The name derives from a first nation band and means “changing”, which also fits perfectly. It’s a strategic project where our job is to bring a product vision to life.
Christophe also spent a day off-site with the Wapato team, while I took care of some accounting stuff.
Michael was working hard on this aviation skills. Every now and then the humming sound of a remote controlled helicopter could be heard through the doors of his room.
The vibes are good. So good, I almost forgot that we lost a couple of thousand Euro this week. But that’s a story I can’t talk about right now.
December 24th to 30th
We hadn’t any project work scheduled for the last week of the year, but we weren’t completely idle. Apart from testing and ordering new office chairs (note from the editor’s back: Thanks!), we had a meeting where we reviewed the passing year and made plans for the new one.
In preparation for this meeting, we took a closer look at our financial results. Here is some data we’d like to share.
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December 17th to 23rd
This week we had something to celebrate. Not just a good year and a new contract we won, but also one of the too rare occasions where all of us are together in one room.
Here are some blurry, grainy, crappy pics of our year-end party.
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