'Mess' to some, 'creativity' to me, 'modus operandi' to The Scale

Hello there Scaley friends, and welcome to our first discussion/opinion post. Today’s theme (and it’s my great pleasure to bring this to you) is The Scale’s design process.

Last week Wil passed on some handy links (thanks Wil!) that not only chucked some pretty cool ideas up into the air, but also spoke a bit about us at The Scale. It got me thinking about how we work… and about some questions that had been buzzing about my head the last few months:

“A business, ey? How does that work? How do we work in a team? Is it really a ‘team’ though, or isn’t it just some friends having a bit of fun? But can ‘fun’ be productive in a business sense? How do other companies manage this? Are they friends?? Or are they lame?”

In an attempt to answer these questions, I scoured the net; every man and his design firm seems to have a ‘way’ that separates them from the crowd. This tells me 2 things: 1) there is no right or wrong answer to these questions (and that’s what I like to see) and 2) I suppose this, and of course the outcomes of their processes, is what makes a design firm unique and therefore endears it to its clients.

Meanwhile, on my net travels I’ve encountered Design Sojourn, a blog on all things design-strategy, a few times. Author Brian Ling is a strategist who consults to, er, design consultancies, about how to run their businesses. He is a fan of numbered lists, so following his lead I present The Scale’s process in list form (in no particular order):

As an aside, I really do recommend going through Mr Ling’s writings with a fine-toothed comb – there are many tips like this, this and this that I feel I should internalise.

1. Splat all our ideas into one place

The Scale of our work - small writing, big thinking

I feel it’s important to physically coalesce our thinking onto paper, lining up all of our ideas next to each other. Like working with a visual diary/notebook, this allows us to give our ideas some weight, but unlike the limitations of a diary, working on a larger scale lets us take in all the facets of the problem we’re tackling. The above two images show the session’s scribes at work.

2. Talktalktalk

Discussing...

Aaaahh, so important, always: communication. In the spirit of the first of our core values we talk out our theories. There’s inevitably a Devil’s Advocate among us to keep the rest of us from the clouds, many side tracks and interjections, but always much creativity. THIS to me is the real strength of The Scale to date – our ability to articulate our thinking between ourselves. This results in the 5 of us forming a united front. Aw.

3. Seek new angles

Different perspectives

Now, this one is super-vital, and something that a five-person collective affords quite well; the ability to tackle a problem from many sides. This was, in fact, one of the driving factors to forming The Scale in the first place. All of us, Industrial Designers as we are, operate at different scales. We have different interests, likes, areas of expertise. Yet, we’re not too different to negate number 2 above. This is a powerful combination, in my mind.

4. Record/Reuse/Recycle/Remix

Documentation

Yes, we’re firmly positioned in Gen-Y which means we have a built-in love for the remix. Practically, this necessitates constant documentation. Actually, this probably also means we’re forming a decent work ethic. Creatively though, this means we can learn from or save our best ideas for later, build from them, share them again between ourselves or cut them up to suit our purposes. This remixing is a hugely powerful design process, and it’s made possible by a rigorous documentation regime.
Immy is our resident pic-taker. Check him our here. Thank you Immy!

5. Sketch, of course

Collaborative sketches

This one’s a given, really. But what I like about our sketching at The Scale, and what I couldn’t do when designing by myself, is the collaborative sketches we produce – passing the paper round the table, scribbling bits on top of each other’s scribbles…it puts me in mind of the children’s drawing game that ended up making mish-mash cartoon characters. What fun!

And to me, in our industry, fun is what makes success.

That’s why I became a designer.

So there you have it – an insight into the way The Scale works. I feel it’s important to share this as it helps us all understand where we’re coming from. Communicaiton is key after all.

Fellow Scales, I’m sure you have more to add on our processes. And Scaley Mates, how do you work?

x