Entrepreneurship Case Studies
It was really interesting hearing from design entrepreneurs about how they started their journeys in design and continued on to successful businesses. It was inspirational to hear that not everyone follows the same path and there are many ways to get where you want to be. Robin Howe of Fieldwork Facility, John Sinclair of ustwo and Sophie Hawkins of S.Hawkins were all great speakers and gave really good insight into the world of entrepreneurship.
A key theme I noticed through all three case studies was the importance of values within a company. Robin Howe said that citizenship is more important than citizens and that even though you can't save the world with every project, but you can leave the world a better place. I really like this view because it takes the pressure off a little - by not feeling like every project has to be world changing, it gives you more headspace to think about the projects that might be.
John Sinclair also references ustwo's values by saying they are a core part of the business he and Miller created. They sit at the centre of everything they do and it has really helped when expanding into 100+ people because even though you can't always be there or know everyone very well, you at least know everyones values are aligned.
Sophie Hawkins also has a strong ethical and values based stance - after finding out the process of natural dying wouldn't be eco-friendly when mass produced, Sophie changed the way she made clothes. She went to expert Charles Ross and discovered that the most eco-friendly thing was to up-cycle so Sophie built this into her business model.
The thread of values linking all of the entrepreneurs together is a really interesting one that is worth further analysis. Why do people with strong values seemingly become more successful when the capitalist society we are in values money above all? Is this because design is a different industry altogether and we are all linked by the idea that we can do better and make the world a better place? Is the industry of design full of idealists - people who always want to see the best in things and do the right thing? Obviously it's not filled exclusively with people like this but to be a good designer I think you need to have a high level of empathy and that could be contributing to the values based industry that seems to be emerging.
Ethics and values are clearly a major part of being a successful design entrepreneur, and it is definitely something I will consider more when tweaking my business plan from week 4. Having worked in charities for my whole career it is already something that is important to me and I'm even more motivated to include a strong set of values in my business plan and in my work in general throughout my career going forward.
Designers make great entrepreneurs, they just don’t know it yet [1]
This was a really interesting article that brought up something I have thought for a while - designers want to design and aren't that interested in the admin side of management. Jessica theorises that this may be one of the main reasons not as many designers are founders as they should be - only around 6% of entrepreneurs claim design as their main discipline, compared to 50% of engineers. This is quite a surprising statistic until you realise that the higher up in an industry you get, the less you get to do the job you love, this appears to be a big problem for people in our industry.
Most entrepreneurs, in contrast, are actually not amazing at any one thing. People may see them that way, especially given the media narrative of how we depict entrepreneurs and startups, but founders are typically just "good enough" at a slew of things: fundraising, product, partnerships, etc. Good enough to get things rolling and faking it until they make it -- that is, can hire people that are better than them in most areas. [1]
Although one of the major skills needed to be an entrepreneur is problem solving and that is also a main quality that successful designers have. Jessica points out in the article that to be a Designer and an entrepreneur you need to love the process and the problem solving as much as you love design and I think this is a sticking point for a lot of designers. In my experience I only want to make beautiful designs, not get bogged down with the admin and maybe this is the problem - that is what people see being an entrepreneur as.
I think the way to get more designers to be entrepreneurs like this article suggests, is to change the way people see the business side of it and show them it can be more creative and fulfilling than they think. This, in my eyes, is the only way to pull designers away from the proverbial drawing board and get them into the boardroom.
"You're a design entrepreneur, not a designer"
Making something beautiful is not enough these days [2]
I found it really interesting in this article that although Alberto Alessi said "we do believe that beauty can save the world", Bradford Shellhammer thinks that is not enough in the modern day. People are founding companies/studios/freelance businesses and doing themselves down by just calling themselves designers - they should rebrand themselves as design entrepreneurs, that covers far more of what they actually do. This is an interesting article to read because it is something I have never thought about in this context before, maybe calling ourselves designers when actually so much more goes into it is actually selling us short.
In the essay, Shellhammer lists four things he thinks every design entrepreneur needs to succeed:
Validation
Access to resources
Exposure
Experience
I thought this was a great way of pointing out that the things you need as an entrepreneur are very similar to those needed as a designer - so maybe designers do make great entrepreneurs!
Examples of great Design Entrepreneurs
Denys Pakhaliuk
Denys Pakhaliuk, the CEO at Ramotion, a product design and visual identity agency, says the impact of good ‘people skills’ is the single most important factor determining the success of any business.
“Since I’m at the front line of the business and one of my primary responsibilities is closing deals, I need to know all the aspects of the product design. It is about understanding the process and being able to translate the value of design from the expert to business language.” [3]
Jane Portman
Jane Portman is a UI/UX consultant and the founder of UI Breakfast and Tiny Reminder.
“Designers always have that power of making everything you do look good. Other founders have to pay thousands of dollars to achieve the same level of polish!.” [3]
Melissa Ng
Melissa Ng (also known as @thedesignnomad), heads up Melewi, a remote-working digital product (UX & UI) design studio.
“Being a good designer requires you to be constantly learning and improving - you have to value progress. I’ve learned that I need to apply that want of progress to other aspects of running a business that seem mundane." [3]
I really enjoyed reading the profiles of young design entrepreneurs on the Huff Post website. They are all extremely successful in the field of design as well as founders of successful businesses. One thing I noticed was how different everyones experiences are and to make it as a design entrepreneur taking advice is a great thing to do but ultimately we can weave our own path.
Workshop Challenge
Being an entrepreneur today
Create an information graphic, or diagram, or animation that, for you, highlights the effective definition and process of a being a design entrepreneur today.
Upload your diagram to the Ideas Wall and discuss the pros and cons of how risk, failure and innovation is built into a model for business success;
What is the impact of different cultural insights with regard to opportunity and potential?
The first thing I am going to do is think about the words that describe design entrepreneurs to me.
I then decided to narrowed it down to the top 10 words I think describe definition and process of being a graphic design entrepreneur today.
Explorer -Graphic design is all about finding out about everything all of the time. It'd the hunt for new information and new ways of doing thing.
Innovation - It's always about thinking of something that hasn't been done before.
Taking risks - You can't be a successful design entrepreneur without taking measured risks.
Knowledgeable - It;s about having a wide variety of knowledge and if you don't know something, be eager to find out.
Global - We think about design and business in a different way now - everything can be a global industry, especially design.
Experimental - You would never discover anything new if you don't experiment and constantly try new things.
Creativity - This one speaks for itself, both in business and in design creativity is key.
Dreamer - Thinking outside of the box and being an idealistic thinker helps come up with optimistic solutions to problems.
Juggling - Design Entrepreneurship involves a lot of juggling and wearing different hats depending on which problem you need to solve.
Add colour - Designers add colour to the world and make things more beautiful than they were before.
I really like the idea of a design entrepreneur adding colour - not just to the designs they create but also to the business world and the world of their employees. I'm going to look at using this as a central theme for my final piece for the workshop this week.
I want to create an infographic/animation to illustrate all of the words I have chosen because the life of a Design entrepreneur is constantly changing and sometimes a little hectic - you also have to have many different skills and knowledge so I want to reflect this too.
The first thing I thought of was doodles - they can be used to show everything from what you are thinking to plans for the future - much like a design entrepreneur they have many different uses and applications. I then thought of an artist I had seen around for the last few years - Mr Doodle.
Mr Doodle
Mr Doodle (Real name Sam Cox) is a British artist who shot to fame in 2017 when he became a social media sensation for posting a video of a 60 hour project where he doodled all over the exterior of a vacant shop in Old Street, London. This was shared millions of times and lead to solo shows all over the world and recently being the fifth highest selling artist in under 40 in the world in 2020. Quite the accolade for a doodler!
I thought this would be a good place to start because as I mentioned before the energy and the flowing nature of doodles like this, reflect the free flowing, multi skilled nature of a design entrepreneur. I also think I could do something quite cool with colour in a doodle style, relating to my view that designers bring colour to the world.
I love the style he uses and is is so accessible to everyone, anyone from children to seniors can enjoy it and understand it. This also relates to the need for communication a design entrepreneur would need, the ability to relate to everyone and be able to network with people from all different backgrounds of all different ages. Doodle is a universal language, just like design as a wider profession.
The next step is to plan out my workshop challenge response...
I really wanted to combine doodles and the words I had chosen to create an illustration describing what I think a design entrepreneur is. I picked this instead of an infographic because I don't feel like you can really quantify what a design entrepreneur is, it's so may different ever changing things. I think this is a good start, but I want to work to integrate the images and the words together more.
I think this idea is coming along nicely and I'm looking forward to developing it further. I'm going to use procreate to draw these images individually so I can experiment with the composition and the way the words wrap around the images.
I really like the way this final composition looked. I think it does a good job of communicating the fact that a design entrepreneur does a lot of things - I think the doodle style works really well and I am pleased with this design choice. The only thing missing is the idea that a design entrepreneur adds colour to the world. I am going to add colour to this doodle and see what it looks like.
I really like this however I don't think it communicates "adding colour' as much as it communicates just colour. So I thought the best way to show this is to create an animation of my process, and here it is.
Final Workshop Challenge
Reflection
I really enjoyed the content this week and found it especially interesting hearing about how design entrepreneurs became successful in the industry, both in the podcast and in my own research. The advice they were all offering was so varied apart from the idea of values - everyone in the podcast said values was one of the main things that helped them become successful. This was interesting to me because when I was writing my business plan earlier in the module, values was something I focussed on heavily. Maybe I was on the right track!
The workshop challenge was really interesting as it gave me real pause for thought about how to present my ideas on what a design entrepreneur was. As soon as I came up with the idea of the doodle style to reflect the ever changing and relatable nature of the job of design entrepreneur I felt like I was on to something. I really like the way my final workshop challenge response turned out - I think it communicated my ideas well and in a fun way.
If I had more time however, I would definitely work on the animation and start it from drawing the first image - unfortunately there was a fault in procreate and the animation wouldn't export from there. I think I would definitely refine it more and possibly add some more colour to the animation, just to really get across the idea that a design entrepreneurs add colour to the world.
I am pleased with this however and I think this week taught me a lot about what it would take to be a design entrepreneur myself.
References
[1] Wired, Jessica Alter,(2013) Designers make great entrepreneurs, they just don’t know it yet [online]. [Accessed 28/7/21].
[2] Shellhammer, B. (2015). "You're a design entrepreneur, not a designer". Available: https://www.dezeen.com/2015/03/10/bradford-shellhammer-opinion-design-entrepreneur-not-designer-business-e-commerce-branding/. Last accessed 28/7/21.
[3] Laurinavicius, T. (2017). 6 Successful Designers-Turned-Entrepreneurs Share Their Biggest Business Lessons. Available: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/6-successful-designers-turned-entrepreneurs-share-their_b_59202043e4b0b28a33f62c74. Last accessed 28/7/21.
[4] Schneider, T. (2021). How an Artist Named Mr. Doodle Became a Multimillion-Dollar Auction Sensation With a Bunch of Squiggles and ‘Like’-able Branding. Available: https://news.artnet.com/market/mr-doodle-profile-auction-sales-1947142. Last accessed 28/7/21.
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