Before, During,
and After COV-19

What’s the opportunity in a middle of a pandemic?

Dear Design Leader,
You have one job—do it, and do it well.
You have to lead design. But design is broad in all its abstract and concrete forms.
Do you have to draw? Maybe. Do you have to write? Possibly.
Do you have to concept? ?
Art direct? Strategy? Storytelling? Photography?
Videography? 3D? All of the above. Even research? Fosho.

You’re Screwed.
You have the fun-nest job in the world—leading design.
Do it, and do it well.
Your path might have come from designing craft, to projects, and leading organisations
In that journey (and time), you would have practiced a lot of the skills mentioned above.

It’s Always Going to be a Mess.
Accept it—Roll up your sleeves, and get your hands dirty. You possibly have the capacity of 8 powerful hours in a day. And a few more that are not.
But guess what. You still have the fun-nest job in the world. Use that time well, and do your one job right.

Design the teams. They are fun.
Design the space.
Design the process. Of course!
The parties too? They are the most important.

Don’t handicap the business, or the practice, or the people from growing through the path that you had.

Be a Leader.
Do it with a vision, passion, and love. But most importantly, get the !@$&(^ job done.
You have one job.
Go ahead, have a 🥃? , put on that black tee and make the logo bigger on behalf of your stubborn intern.
Don’t be boring, you're also a designer.

Leadership by Design

How might we… Plan the right path & progression for designers?

Understanding
Design Types

Understand what pulls a particular design individual, and growth-hack based on their skillsets, purpose and ambitions.

• Gatherer—Ravager and collector of info.
  E.g. The Researcher, The Scientist
• Thinker—Insights, Ideas, Frameworks. You love em.
  E.g. The Strategist, The Creative
• Mason—Pixels and bricks to perfection.
  E.g. The Visualiser, The Illustrator, The Writer
• Operator—OCD much? Loves law and order, plays by the rules.
  E.g. DesignOps, ResearchOps
• Hustler—Whatever it takes. Come what may.
  E.g. The Talker, The Problem-Solver

Content That Works

Today, platforms and systems have been built—we need to operationalise them to add continued value.

Content design is about using research to give the humans what they need, at the time they need it, and in a way they expect.

Content design is useful

Content design is channel and media agnostic

Content design is not boring

Making it Happen

Content Charrette—A discovery phase between 4-6 weeks of research, audit, strategy and concepting.

• Research and analysis
• Jobs-to-be-done
• Channels & customer lifecycle
• Strategy, style, language, emotion
• Content creation
• Optimisation and content ops

Content Sprints—Learnings applied. We create content that works for the relevant channels. We involve real users in defining the overall strategy and content solutions. Comprehension and ideas tested.

Content Governance—Systems documented—Ways of working, Writing styles, Comms pillars/calendars, Comms systems

Planting a Happy
Seed of Hope

#TeamOfTeams: Emily, Bao Anh, Cindy, Dhruval, Jubilee, Clara, Farid

We believe we can all brighten up a day with something small, and meaningful. That we can inspire with simple and relatable ideas.That we can inspire someone by planting a positive idea in their life and it will continue to grow endlessly.

The betterment for the future stems from self-improvement and embrace of change. We live by hope.

Visit Hope in Unity

Stay Safe and
Designer-ish.

Thanks for reading.