Phillips Design

So, if you’re following us on Facebook, you’ll notice we have interns for the Summer. I was originally thinking we could bring them in with the idea that their presence would help me outnumber and overrule Lee in the decision-making process – we can gang up on him!

The Benefits of Having Interns

However, it turns out there’s and awesome benefit to an internship… they get to learn something about design. About the business. About fear. Yes, they are going to get a baptism by fire at Phillips Design this Summer. (Oh, pity the poor interns.)

But, with an internship program, we at Phillips Design also learn about ourselves. We’re reminded how much we’ve learned from decades in the industry. We learn about why our culture works so well. (And I learn about how the heck to manage people! More on this later.)

Most importantly, Lee learns what it’s like to be clean from profanity for a few hours a day. This has been tough for him – but very good for the rest of us. For instance, everyday just before the interns arrive, Lee burps out a cathartic profanity stream to clear out his system. Maybe we should institute an “earmuffs” system where the interns cover their ears like in the movie Old School.

Intern Blog Assignment

So I asked Lee, the boss, if I could introduce the interns and have them say something on the blog about what they’ve learned so far. He said that’s fine, but in his characteristic style, gave them some requirements for the assignment:

Read more…

If you’re like us, you’re probably working very hard just to survive in this tough economy. You can’t take anything for granted – so you put your head down and do what you need to do, taking it one day at a time.

But even with the superhuman focus required, it’s necessary to step outside your working environment and take an occasional fresh look.

For example:

• Why are we doing that?
• Is there a better way to do it?
• What exactly are we trying to accomplish?
• Where can we spend our money wisely?
• How do we reach these people?
  

We’ve asked ourselves these very questions and we get the same questions from our clients as well – as they relate to marketing and design.

Phillips Design has developed a carefully structured and formal process to answer these marketing questions – we simply call it: “A Brainstorming Session.” (Note to self and crew: We should come up with a better process name and a cool erudite acronym… Something like “Internal Environmental Scanning” or an “IE Scan” or something…) These sessions give us specific design direction and define marketing messages that need to be incorporated into whatever we’re working on.

But not only that, we often come up with new information – often surprising information – that the client didn’t realize, simply because they’re buried in day-to-day operations. Which reminds me of that old saying:

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”

It’s often difficult for people within an entity to agree on anything, much less consolidate a multitude of opinions. And internal politics can make it virtually impossible. But Jill is an “outside” expert at “brainstorming;” she’s done many and knows how to make it happen. Her process involves a series of questions that increasingly simplify (or “bucket”) the participant’s responses down to a mutually agreed-upon solution.

It’s fascinating to watch and… amazing how well it works.

Jill’s latest brainstorming session was with a California state entity that was having difficulty defining a mission statement. Thirty people, from all over the state, came together for a half-day session and sat down to come up with a solution. Because of the large number of people, Jill broke them into smaller groups. Each group was given a series of questions that forced them to discuss, identify, group, and prioritize their answers.

The session, as usual, was very revealing. New information came to light, the complicated was made simple and what was confusing – became clear. Every brainstorming session is followed up with a written report that is distributed to all of the participants.

Besides mission statements, Phillips Design has used this process for determining a marketing direction, creation of a byline, advertising headlines, conceptual background for a new brand, and more.

If this sounds like something that might help you get everybody on the same page, give Jill a call at 916 329-7333.

Here’s another reference:

You have done fantastic work in zero time, the proposed organizational structure is right on… light-years beyond where we were!!”

And this…

You guys are really phenomenal!  Please express my sincere appreciation to everyone who contributed.”

I’ve got 20 years of history doing this sort of work and you are one of the most responsive teams I’ve ever worked with, and one of the brightest. It is nice to see a group quickly internalize what is important to convey – both in terms of words and emotion.”

It was a pleasure working with you on this and I look forward to lots more!!”

Mike MacIntosh

You can see what we did by clicking here. And thank you Mike!

Jill was messing around with LinkedIn and asked one of our long-time clients (Sharon Prager of eConcepts Consulting) for a reference to put in her profile. Sharon came back with this:

There is no shortage of graphic designers out there – almost all self-applauding and assuring you of their brilliance, cost effectiveness, etc.”

Jill and her team at Phillips Design are an “endangered species”:  truly talented, creative, and very business oriented. This is no small feat. Not only do we business clients appreciate a minimum of “drama”, but Jill’s honesty and integrity about budget, and understanding that meeting the company’s needs (not the graphic designer’s) is what defines a successful project. I particularly value her ability to partner – not in the “buzzword” sense that the word is now used – but in working with the client to bring both ideas and text to life visually that position and promote the business to its maximum advantage.”

I highly recommend Jill and Phillips Design – they will enhance your business objectives, especially if those include image, information, and increasing sales.”

Thank you Sharon, for your very kind words.

The following excerpt is from an excellent book titled Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. (Thanks Elizabeth!) The subtitle of the book is A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability.

We all know happy talk when we see it: It’s the introductory text that’s supposed to welcome us to the site and tell us how great it is, or to illustrate what we’re about to see in the section we’ve just entered.”

If you’re not sure whether something is happy talk, there’s one sure-fire test: If you listen very closely while you’re reading it, you can actually hear a tiny voice in the back of your head saying, ‘Blah blah blah blah blah…’”

A lot of happy talk is the kind of self-congratulatory promotional writing that you find in badly written brochures. Unlike good promotional copy, it conveys no useful information, and it focuses on saying how great we are, as opposed to delineating what makes us great.”

This is a great  principle to use whether you are writing for a website or a brochure.

We’ve just finished a comprehensive overhaul of the tools that help run Phillips Design. Included among those is a new website on a refreshed and updated hosting platform with a full content-management system backend. Perhaps this sounds like mumbo-jumbo now, but we’re willing to wade through the mumbo jumbo to run our company more efficiently.

Keep tuned as we explore this direction and expand what it means to run a small business right.