Neville Brody
Graphic Designer, Co-founder and Partner, Research Studios
Developing commercial understanding
I would advise anyone coming out of university not to set up on their own. I think the most important thing that they need to get is to learn how to survive as a business; how to work successfully in a commercial area and how to start to understand strategy but not to lose any of their creative edge.
Edward Barber
Furniture Designer and Co-founder, BarberOsgerby
Business sense
I would say go work for someone first. Just for a year or two, just to get the basics of running a business. Just even filing, just even understanding how, you know, everything works. Petty cash, all those things.
Jay Osgerby
Furniture Designer and Co-founder, BarberOsgerby
Learning as you go
I think if you go and work for somebody, you do learn an awful lot. You might not learn that much about business actually. I think that’s the problem. I think you just got to get on with it.
Andrew Stevens
Graphic Designer and Co-founder, Graphic Thought Facility
Core skills
Communication skills; really useful, some numeracy is really useful, at least if you’re going to charge anyone at the end and try work out whether you can afford to do the job, or how much you’ve lost on a job. Also people skills, great because it’s no good being the best designer in the world if you can’t actually sit down with a client and tell them about your idea or you’re just putting them all the wrong way.
Helen Storey
Artist, Designer, and Co-founder, Helen Storey Foundation
Business sense and creativity
Those who are attracted to industries because of aesthetics aren't necessarily interested in making money, if they were they'd probably go off and do a business course in the first place. So it's quite hard to marry those two things. People who have creative ideas are often very interested literally in the living and having them, and turning them into something. And so they either have to discover a hunger for business, or they have to find someone who's hungry in the way that they're not, and partner up.
Richard Shed
Product, Spatial, and Interaction Designer, Richard Shed Studio
Communicating with clients
Maintaining client relationships is something that, that’s very important and also relationships with, with manufacturers as well. It’s important that you, you know, you’re having a different conversation with a client than you would be having with a, some guy based in south London doing metalwork but it’s important that you’re able to convey what it is you want and move projects on. So communication’s key really.
Tim Fendley
Chairman and Creative Director, Applied Information Group
Finding work and creating an agency culture
Running a creative agency, I think, is…you only need to really…I only really concentrate on two things, you know, because I’ve got people now who can do the numbers and do the invoicing and can do the things that mean the business. I used to do all the VAT returns by hand with a calculator. So, I do know how it all works and it’s a pain in the arse and I’m glad I’m not doing it now, as long as I’ve got somebody I trust to do it. But I only really focus on two things, and that is really where is your work coming from; without work you’ve got nothing, if you don’t get the right work then you are not happy, if you’ve not got work that you’re any good at you don’t do it very well and you don’t make any money. So, where the work comes from is really key. And the other one really is the culture of the organisation and the mood that you have and the atmosphere.
Huw Morgan
Graphic Designer and Partner, Graphic Thought Facility
Multi-tasking
Probably 30% of your time is the actual term graphic design and, and maybe even less, I don’t know. Some days it’s certainly less. But it’s all the bits, kind of, around it, the framework, that hold it, that prop it up, so, you know, you have to be, that, you know, understand about IT, you’ve got to understand a bit about human resources, you’ve got to certainly understand about figures, understand about how things, you know, how things can stay profitable.
Morag Myerscough
Graphic Designer and Founder and Director, Studio Myerscough
Getting involved in all aspects of the business
People sort of wondered why I didn’t have more people working for me and why I was so hands-on, and maybe there was a better use of my time than doing all those things. But actually, for me, it’s made me, I feel that it’s stronger because I understand everything about running a business.
Tom Lloyd
Furniture Designer, Co-founder and Partner, PearsonLloyd
Having ambition and determination
The reality is you have to work very, very hard, you know, the market for design is saturated by graduates, and you have to make your own luck and then get lucky a little bit. But it starts with having ambition and going for it, and I think that’s the first point of call for all designers, because the ones who really want to get there tend to get there.
Guy Robinson
Product Designer and Founder-Director, Sprout Design
Becoming established in a competitive market
As we grow and our portfolio becomes more populated with things that best describe what we can do, business is becoming more stable, we're getting more people approach us, so we're having to do less new business work, if you like. And, you know, projects coming in, it's starting to run itself and become more stable. But it has been, it's been a struggle over the last few years to go out and win business against larger consultancies, so we've had to compete on cost, for example, or other aspects of delivery.
Morag Myerscough
Pursuing work
In the early ‘90s, when I had set up my studio, there was a point where I didn’t really have any work and I sat around trying to get the courage up to call people, which I’m not really terribly good at.
Richard Shed
Written communication skills
I’ve learnt to develop certain skills so, for instance, like writing prose, you know, I have to write a lot of proposals, a lot of analysis and kind of concluding documents. I’ve even written articles for magazines as well so that’s one thing, you know, kind of communicating effectively, not just through design and through objects but through words is very important.
Luke Pearson
Furniture Designer, Co-founder and Partner, PearsonLloyd
Work ethic
The sort of hard graft is underestimated because we have had this boom period so it’s been quite easy for people to find work, studios as well as young designers. And I think more than ever we’ll have a period where people really need to knuckle down and listen to what companies need and listen to what employers need, and then, you know, produce solutions for them.