Lara Schmoisman 0:05
This is Coffee N5. I'm your host, Lara Schmoisman. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Coffee N5. You know, when I used to teach, my first class always was the same, I would ask my students which, of course, first class they weren't prepared for, to do anything. So I will give them a piece of paper and a pen. And I will ask them the person up to the right or last, I don't remember just to give them a theme and a theme for an invitation. It could be a baby shower, a birthday party, or bachelorette party. And they had to draw that invitation. I, of course, didn't care about the design too much, or what they were doing, because we weren't going to analyze it. And what normally happens is that either someone will do a beautiful invitation, and they will put so much detail in the design. But information will be there, nobody will know where the party was, or what kind of party it was, or where it was. Or so the information was missing, or people would put information on not having the design. So I've realized by doing that exercise, how important it is to combine the two walls. Everyone who knows me knows that for me, design to be superb. Always need to be raising the bar. And I'm not saying that always needs to be the same style. I mean, we always need to cater to our audience. But at the same time, the elements of design need to be there. When we write we need to use our commerce. We need to use our dots as all the elements of writing with designs, the same things happen. So today, I invited Debbie Millman. And Debbie. She's gonna introduce herself because she did so much. And I'm gonna ask her to introduce herself. Welcome to Coffee N5
Debbie Millman 2:14
Thank you, Lara. It's very nice to be here.
Lara Schmoisman 2:19
Tell us a little more about your background, your books. I mean, you did so much design related that I am embarrassed to say the little I did.
Debbie Millman 2:30
Oh, please. Well, I'm a designer. And I have designed and worked on the design of over 200 of the world's biggest brands, including Burger King, and seven up and Hershey's and Haagen Dazs, and Tropicana, and lots and lots of other brands in that realm. I am an educator and I created the world's first master's program in branding, which is where I'm calling from the studio here at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. I am the author of six books about to be seven. One is the newest one coming out February 22. It's called Why design matters in conversations with the world's most creative people. And it's some of my best interviews from my long running podcast 17 years now, which is called design matters. Most of the editorial directors of print mag, and I'm on the board of the Joyful Heart Foundation, and performance space, New York.
Lara Schmoisman 3:32
Wow, that's a lot. You did a lot in your career. And, okay, I mean, you're teaching too, and you have similar experiences as I do. So I feel like a lot of people are coming into design, not knowing what to expect to get into a design career. What are those things that you see that make those expectations, reality?
Debbie Millman 3:57
Well, I think that designers need to understand that talent now is sort of, I equate it with something that's called operational excellence, that if somebody has a degree in design, anybody that they're interviewing with, expects that they're going to know how to design and be a good designer. Design is a very subjective discipline. The very things that some people love and adore are the exact same things that other people might be outraged by. So it's important that a designer be able to talk about their work to be able to talk about what the strategy is that they've used to create the work and not just something that they did, because they like a specific typeface or a specific color palette, you need to be able to show why the design is able to accomplish the client's goals and how the designer went about doing
Lara Schmoisman 4:53
I always call that content with intention. Yes, I think that I call my designers and our audience to create any piece of content that we do, even if it's written. And also when it is designed in it to have an intention. And I have a system that needs to be informative, entertaining, memorable and actual.
Debbie Millman 5:24
Yet there needs to be a benefit to this specific work that is created very deliberately in text.
Lara Schmoisman 5:31
And I found that there are a lot of designers, first of all that design, I understand that they are creative people, that we all have that creativity, but we need to use that creativity and the intention of the final goal. And I feel that many times designers in order to be creative, they're forgetting the goal of the piece that they're creating.
Debbie Millman 5:54
Yeah, it becomes very internally driven about what they like, as opposed to externally driven, which is what will connect best with the audience.
Lara Schmoisman 6:02
Exactly. And now in this few or many years, in the last many years, we have the digital world, we create a whole new set of skills. Yeah. And can you tell us a little more how I explain how traditional design can transform into digital and what designers need to be looking for? Because it's not the same to design a packaging that to design a landing page or design an email? Yeah,
Debbie Millman 6:37
I mean, all of these things are skill based, that you can't just translate one discipline into another, in the same way that if you play the violin, that automatically means you can play the cello or that you could play the piano or that you can play a trombone, there are different skills to all of these different instruments in the same way that there are different skills to all of these disciplines. So it's really a matter of training, and understanding the best practices and the rules of the game, so to speak, for every discipline. And as much as I'm a brand designer, I would never in a million years say that I am also a Digital Designer, because they're completely different skill sets, then somebody else has an expertise in digital that I might have in branding.
Lara Schmoisman 7:22
Yeah, I noticed lately, that is a trend that people call themselves UI designers. Just because they learn how to use those apps that basically the only thing you can do is to put a little color here and there. The UX is they are already
Debbie Millman 7:40
Well, then they're not UX designers. Was my phone. I'm talking to you from a college, and there are master's degrees in interaction design and computer arts. And you know, I can't even imagine that somebody would think that they are leaders without that kind of background
Lara Schmoisman 8:00
very, very much. Because I always think the same thing. And I cannot believe that someone says I'm a graphic designer, because I work in Canva. I just, that's not what I mean, being a graphic designer, you need a lot of education, it's more than using the tools of Photoshop or Illustrator is, oh, it's so much more than you need to understand you need to understand the psychology. This is sociology, to understand who your client is and who is your target audience and the psychology of color and fonts. I love the psychology and
Debbie Millman 8:35
behavioral psychology, especially if you're working in UI or UX, where you really have to understand how people navigate space, and, and the psychology of Finance to be able to know what it will take to get somebody to actually click through to the cart and buy it. So absolutely.
Lara Schmoisman 8:54
Yeah. So my question is here, how can you know, I mean, because I feel like a lot of people want to get into the design world and the digital design world, and what help they can get the skills that it requires to be working for social, but also to create landing pages.
Debbie Millman 9:18
I think it's about education. And if somebody can afford to go to a four year college or a two year college, there are lots of certificate programs. There are some free programs I know Wix has a summer intensive that people can apply to that's completely free. There are a lot of classes in general assembly, there are classes within AIGA. I think that there's lots of ways that people can learn if they can't take a more traditional education path through a college or university. So I don't think it's about that. Nor do I think it should be. People can have any number of ways into learning. Yeah,
Lara Schmoisman 9:56
I also see that a lot of my clients in the agency they come to me with come with expectations. I mean, for me, it's something that is super important for any client to have is a brand guide. That's a brand one guide.
Debbie Millman 10:13
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, that takes a lot of talent, not just anybody can write a brand guide, they're so complicated and have so much compressed information in them. So there's a really good example of something that you need to learn how to do.
Lara Schmoisman 10:28
Exactly. But at least you need to know the basics of your brand. You cannot say, Here's my logo. No, it's
Debbie Millman 10:35
way more than that. To write a really compelling brand guideline, you need to know more than just the basics, you need to know the DNA of the brand, in order for a brand guideline to be meaningful and compelling.
Lara Schmoisman 10:46
Okay, I see that many of my clients out, people say, Oh, I have a logo. No, no, that's not the brand guide. Right? Ron guy needs to be a lot more compelling to tell you the story of the brand, you need to tell you where the brand is going? And what are the elements in design that we're going to be using in order to achieve those goals? Yeah. So what are the elements that for you aren't essential to have in a brand guide?
Debbie Millman 11:15
Everything that you just said, everything that you said, an understanding of why the brand redesign was necessary and understanding of the strategic intent of the brand and understanding of where the brand is today and where you want to go tomorrow with this new identity, real reason for being as well as all the technical elements of colors, typography, use in all mediums. So, you know, I've worked on brand guidelines that are 12 pages, I've worked on brand guidelines that are 900 pages. There's so many different ways you can
Lara Schmoisman 11:50
absolutely. And it's something that I always say to my clients, and I asked this question when I do branded for them is, how do you see around what your need of a brand is? Because
Debbie Millman 12:04
why? Why are you doing this? Why do you need to make this? What is the purpose of doing this?
Lara Schmoisman 12:09
Yes? Because it's not the same for someone who's got a restaurant and it's more convenient than someone who wants to franchise? Yeah, it's completely different. So you need to know what your needs are as a business. If later on, you need to expand? Well, you can always expand on a brand guide, but you need to have a solid base, the same that is solid, the colors, and I also want to talk to you about something that is really important. And I found that very few people know about this. And it's the law of accessibility. Yes, it's fundamental in these years in this time and age, mostly I work in the beauty, fashion and wellness industry. And it's fundamental to be working with this law in mind. Yeah. Many people don't realize that this affects design. And I know most of the designers don't know about this law.
Debbie Millman 13:10
Well, I think that it's great that you're telling them because it's critical. It's a table stakes. Now there has to be an accessibility embedded in the brand experience. Otherwise, you're eliminating an entire population of people that are really important to having a sense of inclusion?
Lara Schmoisman 13:32
Absolutely. Can you explain to our audience from the design point of view how accessibility affects the designs, or what we need to what elements we need to keep in mind in order to create an accessible design?
Debbie Millman 13:47
Well, I think it really depends on which medium you're talking about. I'm talking about digital, then you're talking about people that might not, that might be sight challenged, being able to listen to what is on the screen. If it's people that are hearing impaired, then it might be something that has descriptions of what is playing. If it's in the market, then you have to think about gender, you have to think about disability or limited abilities. So it's really a matter of thinking about who are the various audiences that I'm talking to, and and talking with and being able to reach them no matter what their circumstance might
Lara Schmoisman 14:28
be. Yeah, absolutely. And from the design standpoint, I realized that a lot of people have beautiful palettes, but they never take into consideration this accessibility and how something that for digital is super important is see that the colors they have a certain amount of contracts, contracts, and they will pass accessibility. So when you choose a color palette, you need to keep in mind all those restrictions that you might have. Exactly because at the end there are limitations that we will have. Like, for example, you cannot have a very pale color and then have white might look beautiful, but it won't pass on accessibility,
Debbie Millman 15:10
right. But you also have to also take into account what different colors might mean in different cultures. In some cultures, it's virginal in others. In other cultures, it's a funeral. So those are also important things to consider.
Lara Schmoisman 15:24
Absolutely. Um, okay, so I want to ask you this question that I asked Absolutely. Everyone who comes to the podcast, and I know, I've been around for a long time, and I learned that I learned a lot from mistakes, too. So many times mistakes teach us bigger lessons professionally than things that we did, right? Because when you need to do something, again, you do it even faster and better at times. So I can tell us that sorry, that experience that thought out?
Debbie Millman 16:03
Um, well, I think that one of the biggest lessons that I've learned, I learned from one of my podcast guests, was actually after the podcast taping was finished. But it's something that I wish had been captured. So I talked about it a lot. Now. Instead, it was with Danny Shapiro, the writer. And she came into my office, this office after the taping, and we were talking and she noticed a big stack of books on my desk, about confidence, there have been a whole slew of books that had come out about confidence at that particular time. And for me, at that point, it felt like confidence was the Holy Grail. People are always looking for confidence when I feel this way. I'll do this when I feel more confident, I'll do that. And she looked at the stack of books and felt that she very, very candidly stated that she thought that confidence was overrated. And I'm like, what it's like holy grail for me, how is it overrated? And she said, Well, I think that really confident people can often be kind of obnoxious. And what I think is more important than confidence is courage, courage to step into the unknown, before you attempt something, because that's when you really need to be brave to take a chance. And I thought that was really brilliant, that courage was more important than confidence. And I spent a lot of time thinking about what the definition of confidence could be in that context. And I think that ultimately, what I've come to realize is confidence is really just the successful repetition of any endeavor, that we can't get confidence. You don't go to a supermarket and get confidence off the shelves. As much as we might think that hair color or a pair of shoes or whatever, we'll give it to us. It's only temporary. Instead, that's,
Lara Schmoisman 17:49
that's beautiful, and also goes with confidence, you can be confident in this part of your life and not in this part of your life.
Debbie Millman 17:56
Yeah. So the more you do something, you really need courage to step into the attempt to do something for the first time because humans aren't born really knowing how to do anything. From a voluntary point of view, without learning, we can breathe and we can digest and so forth. But those are things we don't want to do ourselves. They happen instinctually, and they happen in our bodies without our command, all the things that we are trying to make of ourselves with our lives. We have to learn how to do and why anybody would think that mastery is any different is something that I've spent a lot of time thinking about and mulling over.
Lara Schmoisman 18:36
And that's great. Thank you so much for sharing that now. We're going to be thinking about that too. And hopefully I will be able to share it with others. And we need to thank Danny Shapiro for
Debbie Millman 18:48
Yes. Okay.
Lara Schmoisman 18:50
Well, thank you so much for being here at Coffee number five was a pleasure talking to you. To everyone else. I will see you next week. TaoTao. Thank you. We're so good to have you here today. See you next time. Catch you on the flip side. Ciao ciao.