The value in sharing

I recently saw something in my Instagram feed that kinda blew my little socks off. It was a quote from Ginni Rometty, the CEO of IBM and she says ‘Your value will be not what you know; it will be what you share’ and I thought it was reasonably fortuitous considering the thoughts swimming around in my head surrounding this blog topic.

Something else I couldn’t get out of my head was an experience I had really early in my career as a graphic designer. There was this guy who was around my age, I can’t for the life of me remember his name but after you read further it’ll be clear why. I was a very green designer, and so was he but he had some digital skills that were more advanced than mine. Any time he was asked how he did some fancy trick in Photoshop his answer would be ‘trade secret’.

A few select words come to mind when I think of that guy but at that point I also think back in gratitude to the days I shared with Clint Harvey at Design College of Australia where he created a place that was tireless in giving students every ounce of industry knowledge possible. He’s still at it even after DCA is gone. I recently went and had a chat to him about the importance of sharing what we know with new professionals.

Clint is old school, he drives an old car, prints on old letterpress machines at his studio called the Bacon Factory here in Brisbane, he’s a legend. Here’ s how my chat with Clint went down.

Julia: Clint, we’re both midway through our careers, I think you'll agree with me when I say that the biggest constant in the last two decades is ‘change’.

Clint: I tend to look at that and divide my career into three sections of 15 years, the first 15 I was working in studios trying to learn some skills and then I ended up doing my own thing too early. The second 15 was running DCA and I looked at the students and thought how can we get these students 15 years ahead of where we were at the same stage. I look at it now and I’ve got 15 years to go, another transition in my career. It’s taken me two transitions where I think I’ve finally got some skills and knowledge on how to think about how manage a design problem properly. The college was good at making people realise it’s about problem solving but then you’ve got to apply that to something practical.

Julia: The biggest change I’ve witnessed is workflow changes into the digital realm especially, do you think this has helped or hindered new generations of creative professionals?

Clint: This is how I think it’s played out for our generation. So, I came out of university in 1988 and Macs weren’t yet in studios, I was fortunate to get a job in one of the early mac-adapted studios. It meant that the next ten years all the industry was interested in was the technology, put a mac in, do your own typesetting in-house, save money and make it fast. For another 10 years concepts and ideas were out the window and it was all about the technology whereas now there’s a role reversal, I look at the young guys and technology skills are now just expected, everyone should know it, we’re not even going to teach it and concept it king.

Julia: How do you think the new grads coming into the industry are going to have to adapt within the industry?

Clint: Without concepts, ideas and problem solving you don’t have the ability to make [an idea] work but you also have to have practical technical skills to apply it. We’ve all been really heavily slanted with technology. The new guys coming in are expected to know web, interactive, sound and video. People have to learn to adapt, they need to be able to build some stronger skills in a narrower field instead of a bigger bucket where they are able to do everything. The way to adapt is to be a generalist for 5 years and have a broad skill set and then narrow down an area of specialty, like web or packaging.

Julia: I already know your answer to this but I’d like everyone to hear your thoughts. Do you think it's worthwhile that new designers learn non-digital techniques? 

Clint: For me, it’s thinking. The idea of sketching and drawing and coming up with ideas on paper. As soon as you open InDesign or Illustrator your mind is in finished art mode. You’ve already started to limit the outcome.

Julia: Which non-digital techniques would you consider most important?

Clint: Drawing, hands down. Also, being able to work in words. When I think of the process that I talk to people about, it’s a word process first, find the key messages. If you don’t know what you’re trying to say how are you going to visually express it. Words and drawing.

Julia: One of the dangers of the current computerised workflow in my experience as a designer is that it can discourage collaboration and discussion. It’s possible to sit in a studio with a room of ten other creatives without a word being spoken. Do you think the advance technology hinders designers in any other way?

Clint: I think collaboration is a mindset, technology has probably made it easier to collaborate. Digital workflow is the best thing to happen to design but what’s not happened is the management of that workflow and the design process. I see a lot of studios push people into that digital workflow and it’s taken away a concept time and one without the other I think there’s a problem that digital workflow is seen as the silver bullet.

I look at myself and anything I do in one day is average, I see a lot of average work out there and it’s not because the designers are average, it’s average because the timeframes are so pushed. The day that studios look at a logo design that might take 10 hours and instead of crunching that logo design in 10 hours straight, you’re going to get a better result to break that 10 hours over 3 days. I think it’s a time management thing.

Julia: I've had the pleasure of working with you in the past so I know how passionate you are about making sure young creative minds are fed, you're quite the mentor. Do you have any mentors yourself?

Clint: Yeah, a couple. I look at Bob Read, he’s 86 and he's been a printer since he was 16. We’ve been meeting for 10 years typically once a month and we workshop in a studio space together. What I find is so good about that, when you’re a so-called teacher or in a role doing a lot of guiding, it’s so good to spend time where you’re the student and you don’t debate the way they do things. When I’m with Bob, I actively will do what he is showing me and I won’t challenge it because I want his view. I look at him from a print perspective and at 86 yeas of age, he is so alive and so invested in print. I’m really inspired by him.

I’m fortunate enough that I’ve met some inspiring people in my travels and I correspond with them weekly through email and Instagram and visit their workspaces. When you see there’s other people of your time and life and you’re watching the way they’re building themselves and their businesses, you feel less alone and that’s important.

Julia: What makes you want to understand the old print process so well? 

Clint: I’m a realist to know that digital technologies and the way we work today is more efficient and commercial but the idea of craftsmanship is important. My biggest personal challenge is I don’t know how to slow down enough, I’m typically running with six balls in the air at a time. I need to learn to slow down and be more precise. I’ve had a year off, and I look at whether I’m happier. And I say not really, there needs to be a balance. I went from one extreme to other and you lose a bit of focus. The key is balance. If I’m going to spend more time with students and grads, this is the thing I’ll be shooting for, I used to push them nearly to breaking point where now I want to try and guide them to find a bit of balance.

Julia: Why is it so important that we pass on this information to new creatives?

Clint: Finding time for people, yeah, we’re going to pass on knowledge and skills. I think the most important part of mentoring and giving someone time is that they will hopefully do the same. I had a mentor when I was 20 by a well-respected designer named Dennis Veal here in Brisbane. I think why I am I so happy and willing to give time to students is because I was given time. People that don’t give time, don’t realise that it’s everything.

Julia: I had a different experience, I didn’t have that and I felt like I was struggling to keep my head above water for the first five years of my career. It was very different after that time where I found people willing to give me some of their time.

Clint: I studied Commercial Art in university and there was always this stigma of being a finished artist but because of the time my mentor spent with me and because he valued commercial art I felt valued.

Here’s some gold Jules. I think we live in a world today where it’s easy to use the excuse of being busy, we’ve just got to slow down. The thing I like about the Bacon Factory is I’ve got Bob who’s 86, Ken who’s 65 who’s another mentor, me in my 50’s and Mark who’s in his thirties. When you’re seeing some of the younger kids come in, there’s nearly someone from every generation. Mark is currently doing wood block carvings and Bob watches it all on Instagram. Bob’s now bringing his own wood carvings to our meetings and corresponding with Mark asking things like ‘Mark, how do I cut this kind of edge?’. It’s just awesome.

It’s important to take the time. Ginni and Clint know.

First published Sep 26, 2017