Herding Cats is a Master's Thesis project exploring the many influences and stakeholders of a design project, and their impact on the design outcome.
PROJECT TYPE: Master's Thesis
LONG DESCRIPTION:
I wanted to explore the roles and duties of the manager of a creative team. I believe that my strength in the design world is my ability to communicate between people about the design process and creative ideas and my leadership. This project aimed to explore how this skill would be utilized in the professional realm.
I wanted to explore the roles and duties of the manager of a creative team. I believe that my strength in the design world is my ability to communicate between people about the design process and creative ideas and my leadership. This project aimed to explore how this skill would be utilized in the professional realm.
For my project I had two clients (Jukibu Library and Museum Tinguely) and two designers, which created a studio setting for me to be the manager of. The goal was to explore the difference between clients and designers motivations, and how a manager would navigate them. From the beginning the different presonalities and motivations of the stakeholders immediately had an effect on the design process.
From my experiment I learned that personal relationships between the client and the design team can dictate the creativity being put forth on a project. The client has a significant amount of influence in the outcome of a design project (something not experienced in student projects) and the manager is the moderator of these two stakeholders. Without a good manager, the client can feel unacknowledged, and athe designers can feel underappreciated. The goals of the client do not always lend to aesthetic results, which is a challenge typically ignored in student projects.
SOFTWARE USED:
Basil JS, Adobe InDesign, ExtendScript Toolkit, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
Basil JS, Adobe InDesign, ExtendScript Toolkit, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
The book photographed above was completely printed and bound by Niki Lesniak.