Design business coaching

What I learnt about mental health This week we hosted an UNseminar in Melbourne. The topic was mental health in the design industry. As they say in the classics, there was a lot of love in the room – as well as some awesome speakers and great insights. Our ‘UNseminar’ MO is two guest speakers [...]

How to share your super power Everyone (including us) bangs on about life-long learning and the need to continually upskill but it’s hard to know what you need to know. I can honestly say we have the answer, it’s a tried and tested method to assess what you know and what you don’t. It’s analogue, [...]

The facts about sprints There is a lot of time invested devising methods to work smarter, more efficiently and more effectively. Some see the answer in design sprints – methodology aimed at getting more work out of the building, faster. Do they work? Busy-ness looks effective. It looks like you are getting stuff done. When you [...]

Mental health and three stages of learning Mental health and the three stages of learning are interwoven. As we move from being a fresh graduate beaming with confident incompetence to a seasoned designer feeling competent confidence, our mental health waxes and wanes. Years ago we attended How Magazine's Mind Your Own Business design management seminar [...]

Designing the stress free studio Some say a 'stress free studio' is an oxymoron. From our first weeks in a design course we are told we have to be creative; and meet deadline. This continues into our working life as one of the elements that causes mental health issues. There has been much written, spoken [...]

Studio culture and job descriptions Much of my work in the Chairman program is with businesses who want to change. I work with forward-thinking studio owners who recognise they can’t keep doing the same thing for the next 10 years. The plans for this change are generally well thought through; they have a positioning to [...]

Why policies and procedures save money. It’s a common misconception that policies and procedures are only necessary when a studio reaches ‘maturity’, be that in structure or in longevity. That’s not true. Well written policies and procedures save money. They are the backbone of a truly sustainable design firm because they allow everyone to work [...]

Do you have ‘design-led’ or ‘design-fed’ clients What is the difference and why should we care; as long as we get design into the company? This was answered by Ryan Hart, principal analyst at Forrester, one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world. Ryan was talking recently at the Forrester CX [...]

ONE MINUTE ON THE BUSINESS OF DESIGN What motivates clients What motivates clients. Understanding what motivates clients by using an empathy map. Want more? Walk a day in your clients shoes, an article about empathy mapping and how it can be used in a design studio. Read it here I jnow what clients really want. [...]

Monthly meetings where designers talk business. Get up. Get out of your studio and talk business with others. Analyse things that are broken. Explore solutions. Talk to other designers. Collaborate. Share. We’ve run a breakfast session for designers for the past two years. A session where problems are tabled and solved, all over toast and [...]

ONE MINUTE ON THE BUSINESS OF DESIGN Fiscal fitness in a design business Fiscal fitness in a design business. Understanding the benchmarks that will show how fiscally fit your design business is. Want more? The Business of Design, produced by The Design Business Council. This book is written just for Australian designers with sections on [...]

Are you really innovative? Who doesn’t want to be innovative? It may not be your positioning statement or used prominently on your web site but for a design business, it’s a mandatory requisite. To be called a creative agency you have to be innovative. Client’s expect it. Truly innovative design businesses get more work. They [...]