Nov 11
An Event Apart 2008, Day 2, 12:15pm – 1:15pm
Read the previous talk in this series, Implementing Design: Bulletproof A–Z by Dan Cederholm, or view An Event Apart’s Table of Contents
The In-House Designer
- Cameron Moll works for LDS Church and in-house design.
- He’s excited about having the team be over 30 people and to work with a big team. He had been a freelancer. He can understand how both ways of working go.
- He’s using “designer” loosely.
- Designers spend their time 1) doing design (the work), 2) telling people about your design (publicity), and 3) convincing people to let you design (relationships).
- A key skill for in-house is the ability to influence and draw people in. Your employers are not exactly sold like they are when they are going to go hire an agency.
- Must build relationships to have the workflow go smoothly. That’s relationships betwen engineers and designers as well.
- Great designers are also great communicators. Communication (lack thereof) can often be the barrier between greatness and failure. The cake decorating dilemma (Cakewreckers: http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/)
- Discussion with a client, spent most of the time discussion color and aesthetics.
- He ended up ending the projects and they never used the design. He presented it as it would look.
- He wonders what would’ve happened if he just presented functionality first, and then as those discussions are complete, bring in visual.
- Later, introduce color, introduce layout, etc.
- The Design Excellence Program
- Build up the knowledge and capabilities of the designers working for the organization
- Annual Design review
- Weekly design reviews – his designers find it to be the most useful thing that they do.
- Workshops: Fundamentals of Type, HTML/CSS I, HTML/CSS II, First Principles of visual design, design leadership & Communication
- Design conferences (like An Event Apart!)
- bit.ly/checklist – checklist from a blind person about accessibility and things that really concern them, as well as other accessibility things
- Strengthen long-term relationships with others who may influence the work
- Internal departments
- Local colleges and universities – the schools need to be teaching designers this CSS/HTML curriculum as well, as they need to understand both aspects of it.
- Vendor relationships
- Establish the culture and environment necessary for good design to flourish
- northtemple.com is his LDS church’s internal blog.
- Journal of design
- Establish a culture so that the design can flourish
- It’s easy to let the environment around us hamper your work, but this is not necessarily so. Surround yourself with inspiration, including at home, or a place where you go to sit.
- Telecommute! “Those of you who aren’t [telecommuting], I recommend you do so.” He does it once a week. There’s an article in this month’s Wired that is promoting telecommuting.
- Uninspiring workplaces are detrimental only if you allow them to be.
- “I just got dilberted. Again.” If you are not willing to compromise, know when to get out if you must.
- If you go to freelancing, make sure you have some sort of residual income. A product that you’re selling, or for him the authenticjobs.com website, anything like that.
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