Interview with a Freckle: Jacquie Synnott

Jacquie is the newest member of the Freckle team. Following her job interview and getting settled in, we thought we would sit down with her for an 'unterview', and get to know the person behind the CV.

What do you tell people you do at awkward speed networking events?

I manage the daily workflow between our designers and clients, ensuring all jobs are looked after and effectively run from start to finish. When I’m not doing this, I’m probably at home taking photos of my cat.

If you weren't at Freckle, where would you be?

Before Freckle I was working as a full time Graphic Designer at a large Australian architecture firm called Architectus; creating in-house visual communication pieces including HR campaigns and property marketing collateral.

During this time (and for some time before!), I wanted nothing more than to work in production management, at a small branding agency and focus on freelance graphic design projects in my spare time. When the opportunity at Freckle arose, I grabbed it!

What are your greatest strengths and ‘quirknesses’?

My strengths lie in the technical aspects of design. From creating technical drawings to technical spreadsheets… I enjoy the methodical process of design problem solving.

I also know my way around a table-top hand loom! All thanks to a bad flu and access to YouTube just over 3 years ago, I’m now a proficient hand weaver. I guess you could call this my greatest ‘quirkness’!

Who aren't you?

Out of all the things in life that I am not, I would have to say I am not the type of person who confuses purple for blue.

Where do you see yourself in 5 minutes?

Replying to 3 emails at the same time, whilst dreaming of dumplings for dinner.

... 5 days?

Planning a trip to South East Asia to make the dumplings a reality!

Are you a Mac or a PC? Dog or cat? Tea or coffee?

I am a cat sipping on a takeaway coffee in front of a MacBook, and I know many people who can vouch for this.

What could Freckle clients ask you about, that you could expertly talk about for three hours?

Around two years ago I worked at a creative production design studio in London specializing in the design and installation of retail window displays and pop-up shops. This is during the time when my love for production design blossomed. If a Freckle client was to ask me about the creative production involved in an event or retail space, spanning from signage to installation manuals to props, I would be able to chew their ear off on the topic! Firing off questions such as “Is it legible? Is that at eye level? Is it adjustable??” so on and so forth…

What will your ‘Freckfest’ talk be titled?

With all the construction and general development happening in Sydney as of late, I’ve become extremely interested in urban design within big cities. I think I would base my Freckfest talk on a great book I’m reading called Happy City by Charles Montgomery. This isn’t set in stone though; you’ll have to wait to find out!

Branding: this time, it's personal

When someone in an elevator asks me what Freckle is about, I say something like:

"We’re an agency that designs brands, campaigns and events."

The concept of brands in particular is what first got me excited about working in design. I started by dabbling in Photoshop, and went on to study advertising. I found advertising oddly inspiring. Perhaps this was because I suspected there was another angle to it than just manipulating society in order to sell them junk food and get rich by destroying their health — something about finding truth, or revealing hidden value in brands to change perception en masse — and indeed I found this attitude in Todd Sampson and our other mentors once I got into my studies. At Freckle we have this origami analogy: you take a piece of paper and ‘reveal the hidden value’, in transforming it into an animal.

I had the same suspicion when ‘personal branding’ first became a meme. What if we took time-tested concepts from brand strategy and applied them to the brand that is you? The idea is promising — but how far could you push it before the analogy broke down?

It seemed that for the most part, personal branding meant something like “Always wear the same quirky tie to networking events”. Frankly, that seemed a bit lame to me. We have probably all had the experience of chatting to someone at a professional event, and feeling like you never quite get past their well-rehearsed sales small-talk playbook. I always walked away from those interactions feeling a little ‘icky’.

Is personal branding more than just wearing a funny hat?

Was personal branding limited to some kind of persona adopted by public speakers? I wondered if the Freckle approach to branding could work. Something about revealing the hidden value of ourselves. Now, that seemed a lot less icky as a goal. Empowering, even?

At the latest Creative Mornings Sydney meetup, I heard our approach validated by the (potty-mouthed) 'brand guy' himself, Richard Sauerman:

“There isn’t a brand persona ‘me’, and a real ‘me’... they’re the same fucking person.”

Amongst other projects, the brand guy runs personal branding workshops along similar principles as the Freckle way: looking to reveal the best of ourselves… and not just with a quirky tie.

Richard Sauerman at Creative Mornings Sydney.

Creative Mornings is an international community of professionals. The Sydney events happen every month on the last Friday in the Workshop, Redfern.

How to create your personal brand strategy

Brand strategy can easily be over-complicated — but in thinking about a personal brand we learned that you can get the ball rolling pretty quickly. If you’re starting with the attitude that you’re just trying to reveal the positive traits that are relevant to your goals, then chances are you already have a couple of items that come to mind. You know who you are, at least roughly. Mental blank? Sauerman would suggest that you might be letting anxiety get in the way ("Don't be bland… popularity is for mediocre people”). Make a short list. How can you align your communication to these traits? Now you have a personal brand strategy.

Personal brand checklist

1. Write down your strongest personal traits
2. Choose your ‘favourites’, the ones that align with your personal/professional goals
3. For each favourite, brainstorm how a person with these traits might behave
4. Select some behaviours that feel authentic for you to commit to

Example: yours truly

As a graphic designer, I thought about the traits that creative professionals are valued for. Some sprung to mind immediately: they have imagination and humour, they’re willing to fail, and they’re open-minded. Does my CV reflect these traits? I have created a CV that begins with long-form prose, and has no ‘past employment’ section. Of course, this is not appropriate for everyone but works well for my profession and skillset and, most important, feels authentic to me.

Example: Doctor Jason Fox

Having previously mocked quirky clothing as a personal branding tactic, I mention should Doctor Jason Fox, a public speaker, writer and consultant, who is an example of how to do it right. The difference is that it comes from an authentic place: his professional appearance is an extension of his personality.

Doctor Jason Fox: quirky style done right.

Branding strategy is about consistently presenting the best parts of your product/service/group; seen in this light, personal branding is not something limited to entrepreneurs, or even to business goals. Is the world hearing what you’re trying to express?

Do you have a personal brand? What is it and how do you communicate it? As designers of intelligent communication, the Freckle team are always curious about how our readers reveal the hidden value of themselves or their teams using branding strategy, so feel free to drop us a comment or an email.

Don’t get charged with Death by PowerPoint: A simple hack you can use to unboring your next presentation

Image courtesy of Halans Photography

Is the news really just b-grade entertainment? Do you suffer from Phantom Cat Syndrome? And what is the correct way to peel a banana?

I heard the answers to these questions and more at the Oxford Art Factory on a warm spring night last week, during the 17th Ignite Sydney evening. The event felt like a shorter, rowdier version of TEDx Sydney, featuring 14 speakers and three bars that never stopped serving.

Speaker Hugh Saalmans gave us the hard truth that the world is ending, and explained how we can prepare for the apocalypse. To cheer us up, Chloe Boreham showed us that life is full of little loving moments, if you look for them. Life saver Lucy Schott revealed her dark secret: she is terrified of the ocean. Doug Suiter told us the story of a cat sleeping in the centre of his bed, forcing him to contort himself around his favourite pet, only to wake up to find no cat, and a needless back ache (an apt metaphor for obsolete habits dying too late, he posited).

As always, an eclectic bunch of speakers populated the Art Factory’s stage, the only commonality between them being their passion for a chosen niche topic. Ignite Sydney carefully chooses the speakers to capture a broad spectrum of topics, and anyone can throw their hat in the ring to be in the running. The catch? You must use a 20-slide PowerPoint presentation, and each slide gets exactly 15 seconds of fame. If you do the maths, that’s a neat 5 minutes to get your message across. to quote Ignite curator Stephen Lead: “Enlighten us, but make it quick.”

Sounds challenging? Your delivery and timing would need to be on point, no doubt. But on the other hand, it’s a strange reality of the creative process that this kind of limit can elicit a more imaginative approach. Ignite's presenters were unknowlingly receiving a masterclass in design: putting constraints around a project can help you push through creative blocks, and make the end result that much more unique.

Indeed, technical tinkerer Michael Kordahi gave several examples of ‘beautiful constraints’ during his 5 minute talk about the hacker mindset: Jerry Seinfeld famously imposes the personal restriction of never swearing during his standup routines (a constraint that perhaps many of us would struggle with!). Then there's Brian Eno, who created the infamous Windows 95 startup sound, but was lacking inspiration when the brief came to him. “We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional, this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said: and it must be 3.25 seconds long.” This final, bizarre constraint made him laugh, and stirred some imagination up too: he ended up submitting 84 tiny tunes in response to Microsoft's request.

But you don’t have to be a legendary comedian or composer, nor a hacker, creative professional or public speaker, to benefit from this technique. Next time you need to make a presentation, consider imposing some constraints. What if you had to get your point across in only 5 minutes? What if every slide was on a 15 second timer? The constraints need not be time-related, either. Designer Jarrod Drysdale imposed an arbitrary constraint when designing his online course: he had to use the colour green.

And, of course, take inspiration from other great presentations and check out the next Ignite Sydney event! It won’t disappoint: I drank… and I learned things! I learned that we all suffer from phantom cat syndrome from time to time; that peeling a banana ‘from the bottom’ is the best way; and that mass media news really does make more sense if you imagine it as entertainment. Moreover, I learned a great hack to make my own presentations faster, more fun and more engaging.

What beautiful constraints do you use when you need to get creative? What other hacks help you to ‘unboring' your messaging? As designers of intelligent communication, the Freckle team are always curious about what works for our readers, so feel free to drop us a comment or an email.

How to work effectively with creatives

A Frecklist to save you time and money, and make creative teams like you

As self-described 'designers of intelligent communication,’ the team here at Freckle know that intelligent communication starts with the creative brief: a detailed chat with you about your project over coffee or Skype.

A good creative brief is clear and specific. But many of the biggest problems we are trying to solve in our professional lives tend to come with an evolving problem space or amorphous constraints: half of the solution is in successfully framing the problem (in designer speak we call these ‘wicked problems’).

So, how can we design an intelligent brief from the start, given the complex, and often abstract nature of Next Big Things?

This is an important challenge in our line of work. As a full-service agency, our journey with you is not only ‘brief to product’, but also ‘idea to brief’ (sometimes even ’strategy to idea’ or even ‘zero to strategy’). We pride ourselves as adept ‘brief whisperers’.

Design is a collaborative process, so what can you do on your end? In our experience over hundreds of projects, we found that certain simple approaches to the briefing process can translate into real savings in dollars and time for the client.

So, here are our seven heavenly virtues for how to work with creatives effectively and avoid brief Hell.

Have a system

Even for creative projects (arguably especially for creative projects), using strict systems and processes leads to better results. Again, the more organised you are with your brief; the more efficiently and effectively the creatives can work; and the more money, time and stress you’ll save! Does your team have a project brief template? Use it. It ensures you don’t miss any important information. Don’t have one? Maybe the creative team can help you out. Friend of Freckle Colleen Keith uses a handy template for graphic design projects, which you can find at the end of this article.

Got style?

Just like executives communicate in PowerPoint, designers communicate in style guides, aka brand books. Does your team have one? How about an online brand asset portal? Getting these to the creative team from the start can be a big timer saver if it exists and is accessible to you. Doesn’t exist? Consider adding a branding component to the project. A brand is an investment in future creative projects: if you start with one now, it will save you time and money in the future.

Channel your inner creative

A picture is worth a thousand words… even if that picture is scrawled on the back of a crumpled serviette in lipstick. Concepts in the early project stage certainly don’t need to be pretty, and they can be a valuable time saver. Roughly drawing something allows you to focus on the concept instead of the details (see below), and communicates an idea much faster than a long-winded email. As writer Dan Harmon said, making something crappy and then improving on it until it’s great, is much easier than making something great from nothing. So go ahead and get crafty. Sketch something out or make something simple in PowerPoint. Even making a video can work if that’s more your communication style. Find examples that are similar to what you want and share it: “make it look like this, but green." 

Be mean

An important part of the creative process is iterating on concepts to get from rough sketch on serviette (see above) to refined idea to finished product. In the course of this, a lot of versions get discarded. This is a bit different to some professions (in medical, for example), where things have to go right, the first time, every time. Course correction is part of the process and good designers remain detached from feedback about specific ideas. It’s important to be as clear as possible about what is working and what isn’t, so be direct in your feedback. It’s not mean, it’s design!

Understand these weird creative types

Designers are weird. I think you have to be a little weird to have a strong opinion about the best geometric sans-serif font (it’s Gilroy, for the record). Misunderstandings about differing work styles are common enough that Designer Jarrod Drysdale wrote a book about them (actually, two books: one for designers and one for non-designers — a truly non-partisan work of literature). If you work with creatives a lot and you want more advice like these, then I recommend his book(s), The Tiny Designer (a short, easy read).

Hate emails

Alright, hate is a strong word and emails aren’t all that bad because they create an e-trail of ongoing progress and agreements. But if you ‘hate’ them just a little bit more, then a few things will happen. First, you’ll put more thoughts and action items into each email so that you can send fewer emails (a great way of doing this is to have a single point of contact between the creative team and your team). Second, you’ll make each email very clear so that there is less back-and-forth.

Read before sending! Have you clearly delineated actionable items from general information or high-concept ideation (bullet points are good for this. Creatives really love bullet points)? Have you used full names and/or version numbers to make your comments painfully specific (instead of “can you change the picture of the guy”, “can you change the image of the guy in the suit in the October newsletter, page 4, version 2”)? Hate can be great.

Ask the dumb questions

The brief is the best time to ask all of your 'dumb questions’. They say ‘there are no dumb questions’ and this is especially true for creative briefs for several reasons. First, sometimes great ideas can come out of dumb questions. Second, questions that you think are dumb can often reveal assumptions of blind spots in the brief. And third, design is technical. It’s not your job to know why an EPS file is better than a JPG for print collateral and the creatives will be happy to talk you through this. In fact, knowing the technical constraints can occasionally blind us to bigger picture thinking. If in doubt, a good rule of thumb for briefs is to start less prescriptive, and more outcome-focused.

MVB (Minimum Viable Brief)

By Colleen Keith.

WHO / Who is involved? Main Contact, Team and Company (for new clients)

• Who is the main contact for this project?
• Are there other stakeholders or team members that need to be/will be involved?
• BONUS: What is the estimated timeframe for sending feedback or making decisions? Teams often take longer to reach a consensus than a single person.

WHAT / What is needed? Project Deliverables

• Project objectives, vision, goals and expectations
• Specs from printer, supplier, web developer, manufacturer, social media sizing, etc.
• Include all reference the Creative will need and info about usage/placement ie. BRAND STYLE GUIDELINE, logo(s), typography/fonts, print or web spec docs, FINAL edited copy, high res photos with licensing, reference material ("make it look like this”), supplier contact info, graphics, stats, etc.
• TIP: Inform your Creative at the beginning what file format(s) you’ll need,and if there’s anything special required i.e. crops and bleed for print materials.

WHERE / Where will the deliverable(s) be used? Web/Print

• Specify Print, Web, Outdoor, Product, Packaging, Internal, Presentation, etc.
• How long will it be in use?
• If it’s a physical piece, think of where it will go - e.g. Is it being hung up? At what height? Outdoors? Behind glass?
• TIP: If it’s for social media, specify which platform & area so Creative can check the most current sizing specs and recommendations.

WHY / Why are you creating it? Who’s it for? Target Audience

• What is the main message? Secondary message?
• Who is the target audience? How will they engage with or act upon the project? CTA (call to action)?
• What is the tone you want to communicate?
• TIP: Providing demographics and history of the target audience, your competition and your brand can be helpful.

HOW / How to provide files and communicate

• How will you be communicating with the Creative? Phone, video conference, email, project management platform, texts, messaging, etc.
• How will files be shared or sent?
• Who should they be sent to at each stage?
• TIP: Set up calls or meetings ahead of time based on the timeline to keep the project moving.

WHEN / When is the product needed? Deadlines and Timeline

• What is your final deadline? What is this deadline based on i.e. printing, online upload, etc.
• What are the incremental deadlines? If you don’t have any, best to make some.
• When are you available for feedback or discussion of issues?
• TIP: The more information you can provide about the timeline, the more seriously your Creative will treat your deadlines.

HOW MUCH / How much can you spend? Quote and Budget

• Do you have a budget for this project? What is it based on?
• Need a quote? Ask up front.
• TIP: This area will be based on your working/billing arrangement with your Creative. Do you or they prefer to work with set project fees, hourly rates or retainer agreements?

WHAT ELSE / Anything else important?

Anything else that you feel is important to mention that will help the Creative do their job more effectively? Even if it isn’t essential to their work, it can be helpful to give them as much information as possible. The more they know, the more they’re “in the project” with you.

Adobe ‘Make It’ Conference 2017: Design. Passion. Sharpies.

I spent my Thursday blissfully binging on inspiration at Sydney’s beautiful new ICC, a kind of in-the-flesh ‘Netflix & Upskill’.

Adobe has expanded its product range and community massively over the past few years and its annual Asia Pacific ‘Make It’ conference has grown to match. This year featured an eclectic array of exhibits, workshops, speakers and demonstrations, great food and drink, and even a live musical/dance performance.

The vibrant festival of creativity reflects our gradual shift into what James Noble, founder of Carter Digital and awesome speaker, calls the Design Age. Already, we’re seeing that it’s no longer about the technology nor the information, both of which seem to be outpacing us all. Now there are few gatekeepers and few limits. The personal video recorder in your pocket is probably better than what professionals used in the 80s, and much smaller too. Technology is merely a conduit and our approach to projects should reflect this. We need to take the technology considerations away, design a solution to the problem and then add back in the technology required.

I attended ‘Adobe Make It’ as a graphic designer, but the attendees I met were from a range of professions — I even found an accountant! And why not? In the Design Age, creative problem-solving is becoming more important for all of us, because, let’s face it, when the friendly robots take our jobs, some of the only roles left for Homo sapiens will be the creative ones. But whether you’re a creative or not, I think some of the things I learnt at ‘Make It’ can be applied to your career. In the Design Age, we are all becoming creative problem-solvers with abstract, multi-directional-hyphenated titles on our business cards. So here’s what I wanted to share – and it’s all about passion, a running theme at this year’s conference.

It’s great to be passionate about what you’re working on, but Gareth O’Brien from animation agency Buck asserts that it has been an important business metric for his team. The difficulty lies in justifying so-called ‘passion projects’ for a busy individual or team, especially when there is business to be done and money to be made. But for Buck, 'passion projects' have been important in creating new revenue streams: Gareth notes that when you look at the agency’s work, there is often a clear line from passion project to similar paid client work immediately after. The underlying message: Make what you want to make more of and you will proactively define your career. And that’s not all. By pursuing a passion project, you can win design awards, learn, do something you believe in (like help a non-profit with a campaign), improve team culture, and have fun, too!

Watch the talks from the main stage speakers as well as the pre-conference Sessions on demand here.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? But how on earth are you going to fit passion projects into your already-packed calendar? Gareth offers some advice. The project needs not be something you just made up. You can use a real brief from a real client; the ‘passion’ part can be you going above and beyond to explore an exciting angle or add value beyond the budget. In fact, having the boundaries of a real brief can be creatively beneficial. And also, passion projects need not be huge undertakings: we can all think about ways to work on tiny side-projects every now and then.

Of course, the concept of passion projects is nothing new: many creatives have created careers by investing time in exploring, playing, and honing a style or a craft they’re naturally interested in. Two speakers were striking examples of this because of their niche specialties. Kitiya Palaskas ultimately made up a new job description for herself: she’s a ‘craft-based designer’ who makes designs out of felt, and piñata-esque props for various creative applications. Meanwhile, Timothy Goodman has recently become well-known for his illustration work using his preferred medium, the humble Sharpie. Both designers used passion projects to build a habit of constant practice and experimentation, and kept one eye open for opportunities to create unique income streams in their personal businesses. And both have published books to showcase their success: Piñata Party and Sharpie Art Workshop.

All the speakers at ‘Adobe Make It’ made the case for stoking your creative fire, not only because life is sweeter that way but also because creativity can make a difference to what your business looks like moving forward. So whether you’re a graphic designer or an accountant, whether you work on them in your personal or professional life, passion projects have a place — more so than ever as we enter the Design Age. I left ‘Make It’ with a recharged inspiration to, well, just make it. I’m going to brush the dust off my Wacom tablet and start making something, for fun and for profit. And I’d encourage you to do the same. Not sure where to start? Just pick a place — any place — and go from there. To quote Tim Goodman: “You gotta make a lot of stuff before you start making stuff like yourself.”