14 Principles Flashcards
Stories
Tell me about a time you handled a difficult customer.
Customer Obsession
S: Difficult Client delaying the closing the issue
- At City & State we publish a weekly magazine with spots for advertisements
- Recent Labor Issue
- Last Day before closing
- Client was delaying the closing of the magazine
- This client is in the civil justice
- Went to Sale’s rep and asked if I could contact the client
- Knew client regularly advertised in the magazine
- Wanted to make sure he was treated well
- Unhappy with their templated ad design
- It was outdated
- Knew client regularly advertised in the magazine
- Offered to redesign their Ad
T: Redesign the Ad
- With Limited Time
A: What I did
- Browsed the Client’s website for information
- Discovered there was brand inconsistency with the ad
- Website displayed San Serif typeface
- Colors didn’t match the ad
- Discovered there was brand inconsistency with the ad
- Used Chrome Developers tool to determine
- Typeface
- Color Palette
- Followed standard design principles to layout
- Headers
- Body Text
- Positioning
- Reviewed it with client
- Explained to keep Style Consistent with the website
R: Client feedback was very positive
- Appreciated the explanation of brand consistency
- Bought additional ad placements for future magazines
How do you wow your customers?
Customer Obsession
S: Fixing a logo for a client who was not satisfied with my logo creation
- In 2018 Designed MKC Threads’s Logo
- Custom apparel company
- After a year, I was curious about how their business was doing
- Browsed through their marketing campaigns on social media
- Noticed their logo was edited
- Contacted owner
- Logo was unpolished
- In-house designer tweaked it
- Logo was unpolished
- Contacted owner
- To me, it meant he was unsatisfied with my creation
T: Wanted my client to be satisfied with my work
- Took it upon myself to fix the logo
A: Requested some feedback on the original logo.
- Client gave suggestions
- More relatable to hypebeast fashion
- Working on the logo
- I was more experienced with vector design
- Cleaned up lines on the illustration
- Aligned face to the proper direction
- Thicker outlines, and larger eyes
- Changed colors and fixed shadows
- Presented to the owner with updated logo design
- Free of charge
- To show I care about my clients
- Free of charge
R: Greatful for the redesign
- Owner was shocked with the kind gesture
- Very pleased
- Requested additional logos to be designed created for his verticals
What improvements have you made at your current company?
Invent & Simplify
S: Creative Request system that was not very transparent in City & State.
- Requests from other departments
- Done in email
- Problems
- Lack of team transparency
- Other designers couldn’t cover another designer’s assignments
- Frustrated other departments
- Staff wouldn’t know if their request were being handled
T: Create a transparent ticketing system
A: Use Airtable to setup the ticket system
- Editorial started to use Airtable to manage their editorial content
- Decided to use same platform to manage our assignments
- Create a form
- Form would include
- What type of task
- Print/Web
- Specs
- Copy
- Brief
- Additional necessary elements
- Logos
- What type of task
- Create a unique link that’s sent out to the staff
- Form would include
- Completing the form
R: Ticket System implements transparency for my team’s assignment
- Helped the creative director manage our assignments
- Designers can help cover another’s assignment if someone was missing
- Showed creation time of request which kept the system in order
- Prevented missing deadlines
- Beneficial to the company
Describe a situation where you thought you were right, but your peers or supervisor didn’t agree with you. How did you convince them you were right? How did you react? What was the outcome?
Are Right A lot
During one of my recent projects, I designed a mobile mockup of the company’s homepage. I sent it out to my team for review. One of the stakeholders requested the buttons to be smaller and felt it was taking up too much real estate for the page. However, I knew this would be a bad idea because he was viewing the mockup through a desktop, and the scale of it was not true to size. Also, it would cause UX risks, and going back to do changes would delay handing it off to developers.
I did not want to offend a stakeholder by just stating no. I nicely explained to him that the reason for larger buttons on mobile was to reduce the risk of accidental misclicks on mobile. Also, I pointed out we want users to sign-up to the newsletter, and an unintentional misclick could cause a small frustration which in theory can lead a user not to sign-up. A best practice is to get it right on the first try. I then continued asking should I move on to the next steps or if he had any additional requests showing that the project and his concerns are important to me.
I was able to change the stakeholder’s mind, and there was no push back on handing it off to the developers.
How do you stay inspired, acquire new knowledge, or innovate in your work?
Learn and be curious
Since I’m a designer, learning about the latest design trends and technology is very important to me. I installed an extension called “Panda 5” on my browser that shows a feed of designer news and visual content from “Dribbble” and “Behance.” This extension helps me keep up with the latest trends and inspires me to try new techniques for my projects. Also, I’m in multiple design communities on slack to stay connected with other designers. I’ve been trying to absorb as much information on design thinking too. I started to listen to a podcast called “Wireframe” on my way to work. It goes in detail a lot about user-centered design which I think is very beneficial to my work.
Chrome Extension Feed
- Panda 5
- Behance
- Follow Designer News
- Dribbble
Podcast
- The Futur
- Wireframe
Youtube
Read books
- Better Web Typography for a better Web - Matej Latin
- Don’t Make me Think - Steve Kreug
Tell me about a time when you’ve been unsatisfied with the status quo. What did you do to change it? Were you successful?
Insist on the Highest Standards
There was a situation I had with my current company that frustrated me on a visual level. Other departments were causing the company’s brand to look unprofessional by printing signage with colors that are not part of the brand, using incorrect typefaces, using the company’s logo in the wrong way, and our photographers’ photos were unappealing.
Displeased by this, I spoke with my creative director and suggested we create some kind of guidelines. I understood we didn’t have the budget or time to do a full brand guideline exploration, but it was better to have something than nothing. My director agreed, and I created a company board on “inVision.” On this board, I uploaded all of the company’s logos with proper color palettes, and I set some guidelines on how not to use the logo. I discovered the reason why the staff was using incorrect typefaces was that they didn’t have access to them. So I uploaded the company’s typeface onto the board so it could be easily accessed by staff members. Also, I created a simple photography reference guidelines so photographers now know what kind of photos they should be aiming for.
Now that there were some guidelines and a location where staff can grab brand-related visual assets. The result of this improved the quality of the company’s visual presentation and improved brand consistency throughout the company’s product.
Tell me about your proudest professional achievement.
Think Big
S: Creating my first Magazine Cover
- During my first year at City & State (2016)
- Been working for only 3 Months
- Only have worked on digital items
- Web mockups
- Creative Director noticed my talents on Illustrator with designing line art
- Creating Icons
- Gave me the opportunity to design the “New York’s Power 100 Magazine Cover”
T: Design a cover to impress my Creative Director, translates his vision, and to show my work to a large audience.
- Creative Director wanted a simple and clean cover design
- Using “Art Deco” as an influence.
- Has to represent New York City
A: What I did
- Research on Art Deco
- Understood many New York Buildings are Art Deco-influenced
- Art Deco Elements
- Lavish
- Geometric Patterns (Triangles, Lines,
- Sleek
- Sunburst
- Designing
- Must include Art Deco Elements
- Framing the cover
- Created line art of Empire State Building to represent New York
- Outlined Bold condensed typeface for the Headline (Power 100)
- So it could be read
- Express sleek and smooth lines
- Color Palette (Express Lavish)
- Royal Blue
- Gold
- Must include Art Deco Elements
R: Director was Impressed
- Understood his vision
- Proficient with my tools
- Capable of designing covers
- Since then I designed over 20 Different Covers for City & State
Tell me about a time you were working on an initiative or goal and saw an opportunity to do something much bigger than the initial focus.
S: 860 Washington Website’s map
- Working at Williams New York
- Web Designer
- 2015
- Thinking of components for the 860 Washington website
- A building that was under development
- Digital Director at the time wanted to style the map component
- Google API
- I suggested we create the map ourselves
- Should use SVG
- Custom made
- It would stay high-quality
- Mobile
- Desktop
- Layers could be customized with CSS & JS
- Should use SVG
T: Create the Map with retail shops location
- Director put me in charge of creating the map
- Thought the idea was great but time-consuming
- Stores in the correct location
A: How I designed the Map
- I would use illustrator
- Trace Meat Packing District
- Figure out all the retail shops
- A time when business locations were not implemented in google map
- Physically visit the area and scout the surroundings.
- List store
- Designed with minimalism influence
- Lots of white space
- Relating to the “all-glass” theme for the building
- Spent a week tracing the map and checking if stores matched with my notes
- Tedious process
- Collaborated with developer
- Checking to make sure it met my vision
- Made sure the map functions were working
R: Client was pleased
- It was presented to the client
- My map was used for the cover of the 860 look book
Tell me about a time when you had to tell someone a harsh truth.
S: Discussion on drawing
- Drawing is a hobby that both my colleague and I do
- Show each other our drawings
- Ideas for drawings
- Colleague’s drawing was always emulation of illustrator
- Dragonball
- Sonic The Hedgehog
- Felt he needed to find his own style so he can improve as an artist.
- Wasn’t sure how he would react
T: Convince colleague he should find his own style
A: My approach
- Asked him politely if he ever considered trying different techniques of drawing
- Told him it would improve his drawing abilities
- Linked some videos on other artists
- Explained I had a similar history of emulating that style of drawing
- Asked to show some of his other illustrations
R: Took it positive
- He was a bit hurt
- Knew it was true
- Admitted he got too comfortable emulating their style
- After a few weeks, he started to draw illustrations I believe he excelled at
- Graffiti & Landscape
- He was glad I told him
- Our relationship improved
Tell me about a time when you took on something significant outside your area of responsibility. Why was it important? What was the outcome?
S: Reorganizing Creative Team’s Dropbox folder and creating a structure
- After the first year of working at City & State
- Dealing with a lot of assignments
- Folder was disorganized
- The creative director wanted to clean it
- Couldn’t due to his busy schedule
- The creative director wanted to clean it
- Problems it was causing
- Difficult to find old files that needed to be updated
- When a team member is out of the office
- Can’t follow up on their assignment
- Slowed workflow
- Accidently picked the wrong document
- It wasn’t my responsibility, however, I knew it needed to be done
- To improve workflow
- We had a lot of files
T: Reorganizing and Creating Proper folder structure
A: What I did
- Sorted the folders by
- Year
- Branch
- Categories of Assignments
- Marketing
- Production
- Events
- Inside Folders had Subfolders
- Assets
- Exports
- Delete copies
- Create folders for Advertisers with Client’s name
- Inform my team to start using proper naming structure
- Client’s business (if applicable)
- Name of the project
- Version Number
- Never saving over a file
R: Improved workflow
- Easier to find files
- No pushback on assignments
- Reduced risk of using incorrect file
Give an example of when you saw a peer struggling and decided to step in and help. What was the situation and what actions did you take? What was the outcome?
Ownership
S: Colleague overwhelmed with assignments
- Recently at City & State
- I was assigned to focus on creating mockups for the company’s website
- My marketing assignments were passed on to another team member
- My colleague was assigned to work on the magazine and create 10 different client’s ads within the week
T: Help colleague
A: Requested him to send me half of his Ad Assignments
- Stepped back on my current task
- Knew I would still be able to complete my assignment
- Saw his ticket list
- Grabbed the last 5
- Designed them quickly
- Using Standard Design Principle
- Design it in a way for an easy sign-off from the client
R: Colleague was able to complete all of his assignments for the week
- Colleague appreciated my help
- No delay in closing the Magazine
Tell me about a time you were trying to understand a problem on your team and you had to go down several layers to figure it out. Who did you talk with and what info proved most valuable? How did you use that info to help solve the problem?
Deep Dive
S: During the planning phase for redesigning City & State’s website
- I was in charge of designing the homepage
- We would have weekly web meetings
- To figure out new implementations to feature to the audience
- Editorial, Creative, Digital, Marketing were involved
- Everyone in the meeting was verbally expressing their ideas
- Ideas caused confusion
- Everyone assumed they understood the ideas that were being expressed
- After taking notes of their ideas
- Designed their ideas visually
- These ideas were not functional or a misunderstanding
T: I needed to figure out what they visually saw in their head
A: Decided to visually show their ideas on the whiteboard
- During a meeting, while they were discussing the homepage’s layout
- I got up and began drawing
- for clarification of the layout
- Highlighting areas that were confusing
- E.G. Would there be repeated stories on the sidebar’s feed
- The story was already displayed on another row
- Questioned certain scenarios
- How would it look with no sponsors?
- A situation where highlighted stories were not available
- Missing elements
- Incorrect words were used to explain ideas
- E.G. Would there be repeated stories on the sidebar’s feed
- I got up and began drawing
- Visually communicating their ideas
R: I was getting answers to what I needed
- Realized sections that needed to stay static or added for certain scenarios
- How the back-end side of things work
- How the editorial team was using the cms
- Types of stories that would be displayed on the sidebar
- Proper naming conventions
- Individuals realized meetings required visualization to have a deeper understanding
Describe a time when you saw some problem and took the initiative to correct it rather than waiting for someone else to do it.
Bias for Action
S: I designed a mockup of that colleague had trouble coding
- I just joined City & State
- Designed a mockup for a Featured Story Piece with visual set pieces
- Buffalo Billion
- Created animated gifs for markers
- Handed mockup to the Digital Manager at the time
- She had difficulty recreating the featured Image on CSS
- Animated gifs placed on top of a background
- They considered to just flatten the image and make it static
T: Create the featured image for her
A: Took the initiative to build the featured image
- I was comfortable with HTML/CSS because of my previous job
- I didn’t want to compromise for a static image because it would’ve made the story less special
- Coded it with HTML and styled in CSS
- Packaged it with proper folders and documents
- She just needed to copy and paste
R: We didn’t need to sacrifice the quality of the story
- Digital Manager was thankful for the assist
- Whenever she had front end troubles she came to me for advice
Tell me about a time when you had to step up and disagree with a team member’s approach.
Have a Backbone, Disagree, and Commit
S: Colleague was frustrated with Event’s Manager request
- The Event’s manager requested to add a bunch of sponsors onto the cover
- Her reason was to use it as a selling point when
- This situation was dealt with in the past, and it was decided no due to sacrificing the quality of the journals
- The colleague was considering to reply back in an angry tone
- He works closely with this project
- Told me his problem
- I disagreed with his approach
T: Convince him to approach it in a different way
A: Get him to compromise or persuade the Event’s Manager
- Get him to talk calmly, and use facts
- Find proof that they agreed that there would be no sponsors
- Bring references for how it would cause brand inconsistency
- Write out his thoughts and plan before replying
- Put him in the right mindset
R: Was able to compromise with the Event’s Manager
- He requested a meeting where they can talk
- Brought up his points
- Compromised to put 3 Sponsors on the cover
What’s the most complex problem you’ve ever worked on?
Deliver Results
S: Early on in my career, I only knew how to use photoshop
- Had a problem, didn’t know how to use illustrator
- I knew in order to improve my skill I would need to proficient in Illustrator
- As I browse online I noticed so many designers using illustrator
- Illustrator, in my opinion, has a steep learning curve
- Frustrated me a lot
- Not intuitive tools
- Frustrated me a lot
- Understanding how the pen tool worked with bezier curve worked on illustrator was difficult
- Actually had someone tell me if I mastered it, new possibilities will open up
T: Learn Illustrator and Pen tool
A: Decided I shouldn’t try to intuitively try to understand how it worked
- Browsed Youtube for tutorial
- Saw a video that helped me start a project, how to vectorize:
- Hand lettering
- Learned how to do a bit of hand lettering
- Followed the tutorial
- Used my sketch for practice
- Hand lettering
- Worked on it for a span of 2 weeks to get a full grasp of it
- Realized how powerful it is to use it for tracing
- Practiced on my illustrations.
- Eventually branched off to and learned more techniques on youtube.
R: My hardwork paid off
- Currently very comfortable with Illustrator
- It opened up a lot of new ways to express my creativity
- Assisted me in completely many projects
- 860 Washington
- Variety of Magazines
- Logo Designs
- Made it easy to learn Sketch
