I Was At The How Design

This year I wanted to be more involved with the design industry and I was told by my mentor that I needed to network. I decided to get out of my comfort zone and choose to attend the How Design Live 2017 Conference in Chicago. In class we were taught to get out of our comfort zone and going to a city I never went to and speaking to people I didn’t know was pushing the limit of comfort zone for me. I wanted to make sure before going out to a network event that I had a goal so going in my goal was to meet someone who could possibly hire me for a Summer Internship. I worked on gathering all the work I had so far and assembling them into a website, printing out my resumes and business cards. Then coming down to the the few hours of me needing to fly out I realized I set my goal to high and all I had was this not so good website. I wasn’t going to beat myself up but just rearranged my goal. My new goal was to network and just speak to people I didn’t know.

When I got to the event to pick up my batch and schedule I was so excited with the caliber of people who were there presenting their speeches. Due to the fact that I had the Big Pass that allowed me to go to all the speeches for the five days please believe I went almost all that I could have gone to. The first event we had was an opening reception where I thought I would try out my networking skills. As I went to check into my place and get ready for the reception I realized two hours into my wait in the cold that the Airbnb host I paid for two months in advance was not responding to my calls and messages. I was stranded with no where to stay in this cold, new, windy city. I was so mad at myself at this point for getting out of the comfort zone. My staying situation put a dump on my mood for the entire stay. I found it even hard to push myself to network and speak to new people. I was annoyed and wanted to go back home.

I switched goals for the third time on my How Design trip at this point. This time I decided to just learn from the speakers. That seemed like an easier goal. Lucky for me my mentor gave my number to one of her co workers, Priyanka Krishnamohan, Senior Designer at Pearlfisher, who was also going to be at the event. Pearlfisher is one of the top advertising agencies with firms in London, New York, San Francisco and Copenhagen. Priyanka was so sweet too take me under her wings for two days and gave me advice as a designer myself seeking a job. Priyanka graduated from Pratt Institute with her Masters in Packaging Design. The way she went about getting her job was that she narrowed her job search to the top five companies that where the best to her in New York. She had a confidence in her portfolio. She sent sample posters of her work along with a gift box presentations. I found that interesting compared to applying  for jobs from who ever is hiring on job sites. She also suggested that if I needed inspiration past pinterest I should go to designspiration.net. Designspiration.net is a designers dream and suggest anyone to check it out. I asked Priyanka what were her thoughts on having a personal style as a designer. That was a question I was coming across lately. Her response was, they is nothing wrong with having a personal style even she has one when it comes her personal illustrations. She enjoys doing witty fun illustrations but when it comes to getting a job starting out you have to prove that you are flexible in your style of work. Most of the time it is what the client wants. As you become a more established designer where clients know your personal style and seek you out just for that that is a different story.

While sitting waiting for the next presenter Priyanka pointed out Andrew Gibbs, the founder of The Dieline. The Dieline is a website meant to serve as a program of inspiration and show the industry’s best practices for creative professionals in the packaging design industry.I was also proud that Priyanka’s agency , Pealfisher who won the Nielsen Design Impact Award that was presented by Dieline at the How Design Event. Priyanka then  introduced me to her boss, Hamish Campbell, the Creative Director of Pealfisher just before he was about to give his presentation. It was very humanizing to see this man in a great position at one the the best advertising agencies in New York that could one day hire me be so nervous but get over it and get out of the comfort zone. Thank goodness he did because his speech was the one that stoke out to be the most to me.

Hamish Campbell’s speech was called, Brand Faux-thenticity: You Can’t Make It If You Fake It. A lot of times we are encouraged in our own personal life to fake it until we make it. When we apply for jobs we fake and then run to google to figure out what does this job really entail. Our boss might ask us to design something and we fake it then call over a friend to help us figure out how to get the job done. That is all fine and good for the person trying to get by and learn but now companies are willing to put their brands out there and fake it. When a brand is faking its lying. A brand should have core values but what is happening now is that a lot of brands are jumping on the same trend band wagon and coping each other’s style instead of focusing on what is their company’s core values and their unique story.

Mast Brothers is chocolate company. They threw out the trending words such as artisan, handcrafted, organic. Later on it was put out there that these guys were melting regular chocolate just to make their bars. Weather it was true or not their brand was damaged. Pealfisher had to work with them on rebrand which was overly costly. The recent Pepsi commercial featuring Kendall Jenner is another example of the company wanting to jump on the trend band wagon. With the protects and black live matters and hate against the muslim community Pepsi wanted to show the cared because those were the trendy words. It came cross as fake because it didn’t align with their brand and people can smell bull. Your brand should be your truth. That was why Wal Mart was sued for making their version of craft beer called Cat’s Away. Wal Mart was not the producing craft beer but it sounded trendy to call it that. Understand who you are at the core and use imagination not imitation.

In all I did have a good time. I was in the same room breathing the same air as great artist, great designers, great art directors such as David Carson, Seymour Chwast, Timothy Goodman, Ron Burrage just to name a few. Seymour Chwast showed his work over the years and spoke about his wife Paula and his friend Milton by first name like he is cool with them by  first name basis. I wanted to say, sir do you know you and your friends are in my graphic design history book and here you are in front of me? I did meet new people who I told my Airbnb nightmare story to as an opener to conversations. I took away from this experience inspiration. I was inspired by this heavy hitters of keynote speakers, by their work and all the people who came out to the event to invest in themselves. I walked away with a contact that I do plan on utilizing and I did get a chance to get out of my comfort zone.