18: Design Practice with Nick Chubb from IDC

Nick Chubb is a British Industrial Designer, mentor, and the design director at IDC.
With over twelve years of experience designing consumer products, electronics, and medical devices for customers like new tech start-ups, right up to Fortune 500 multinationals; Nick’s passion for design, business and helping brands create better product experiences has helped him become one the best contemporary designers in the United Kingdom.

Followers of Nick may know him for his presentations to young designers on how to make their first steps into the industry, but today we’re going dive into what should happen afterwards..

Hosted by Fraser Greenfield with guest Nick Chubb from IDC

Nick Chubb - Design Director - IDC (Industrial Design Consultancy) | LinkedIn Nick Chubb Design.com

Industrial Design Consultancy

Breaking In® Book — Amina Horozic 

Peter Thiel | Zero to One - Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future 

Principles by Ray Dalio 

Six Thinking Hats® - Looking at a Decision in Different Ways

​​Six Thinking Hats – De Bono Group  

Purple Cow by Seth Godin - Penguin Books Australia

ReWork by Jason Fried - Penguin Books Australia  

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To follow the show, get in contact with us via email & more head to:

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Transcript

Nick: This is Nick Chub and you are listening to Redacted, redacted, redacted Redact. 

Fraser: Nick Chubb is a British industrial designer, mentor and design director at idc. With over 12 years of experience designing consumer products, electronics, and medical devices for customers like new tech startups, right up to Fortune 500 multinationals, Nick's passion for design business and helping brands create better product experiences has helped him become one of the best contemporary designers in the United.

Fraser: With a keen eye for the big picture and the little details. Nick's work has been featured in outlets such as Wire, Forbes, and TechCrunch to name a few followers of. Nick may know him for his presentations to young [00:01:00] designers on how to make their first steps into the industry. But today we're gonna dive a little more into what should happen afterwards.

Fraser: We all know who you are, but how would you explain to someone who's never met you before? Who is Nick Chubb?

Nick: I would say that I'm someone who designs products for. That would be the simplest answer, and then just let them ask as many questions as they want from there. Normally, something along the lines of, so what is that close or websites or what?

Nick: And then take it from there to explain what product design is. 

Fraser: But correct me if I'm wrong, you're the design director at I D C and industrial design consultancy based out of the uk Yeah, that's right. 

Nick: Yeah. 

Fraser: How did you discover the field of industrial design? 

Nick: I'd always drawn. You know, I was the guy drawing Logos Nintendo and PlayStation and Quicksilver and O'Neill and just drawing logos all the time.

Nick: And so I'd kind of had it in my head that I was gonna be a graphic designer and when I got to high school. [00:02:00] So that's, I suppose when you're 11 years old here in the UK at least. That was when I was first introduced to product design just as a formal subject. So in primary school you had DT where we built like tutor houses and there was little things like that.

Nick: But then when I got to high school, that was the first time formally that it was kind of realizing, oh no, there is this subject called product design, and my mind was made up then from about the age of. Because I'd already felt so passionate about graphic design, but then when I first discovered product design, it was locked in.

Nick: Then at around 12,

Fraser: So wait. Did you do the cool S'S as well in your notebooks? 

Nick: Oh yeah. . You can't be an industrial designer until you've drawn an S with the six lines joining them on

Fraser: and what uni. Did you end up going. 

Nick: I went to Sheffield Hallam, which isn't too far from where I grew up in the north of England. That was a design school I went to. 

Fraser: And I'm assuming that was four [00:03:00] years. That's right. Yeah. And how did you make your first big break after that?

Nick: I dunno if you'd call it a big break.

Nick: I did a placement year, which was my third year, and I'd done other small little internships before that as well. The placement year that I did was working for a guy who. An agency that did web design and graphic design and branding, but he came from a product design background, so I was working on other physical product ideas of his at the same time as well.

Nick: I learned a lot there, which then informed and gave confidence going back into my fourth year of design school. After leaving there, there was another consultancy that focused on kitchenware and cookware products, designing products for people like, uh, Taylor's Eyewitness. Biz Bell and Saba and people like that.

Nick: And then after going to new designers' exhibition, which was, I mean, in the UK especially at the time I graduated new designers' exhibition was the center of the universe. To me at that time [00:04:00] really was, everyone's aim was just to, to make sure you exhibited at that. And that's where there's plenty of opportunities and meeting lots of people.

Nick: I suppose the first big thing after that was, I joined the new product development team at Mama and Papas, which is a nursery brand here in the uk. And what kind of stuff did you do at Mamas and Papas? Working on baby strollers, highchairs, and sort of electronic baby swings, toys, play mats, just a whole load of nursery products.

Nick: But the, the main one of those was the, for them at least, it was quite a high profile baby stroller project. And the electronic baby swings, those two were two of the key projects at that. 

Fraser: From there, you decided to move on. At what point did you decide you'd outgrown your role at Mums and puppers and you needed to move on elsewhere?

Nick: I'm big into the outdoors, just love hiking and I've been into camping and the outdoors and traveling my whole life really. The place I moved to was an outdoor brand, but they owned three different brands, so that was Life [00:05:00] Systems, life Venture, and Little Life. Little Life was a nursery brand, but it was kind of a nursery brand for parents who like the outdoors, so they do different backpacks for kids and stuff.

Nick: Life entering life systems was pretty appealing and got quite a lot of products to market because it was quite a fast turnaround in that industry. Friedrich Sharpen is a spot in Germany where there's the largest trade show in the world, I believe, for the outdoor industry, and so, For outdoor brands, everything has to be ready to show at Friedrich Sharpen, and it just turned out that that was a place that I could get quite a lot of products to market and just to be in the outdoor industry was for me at least quite appealing in comparison to the nursery industry.

Fraser: What was the catalyst? Did you just see an ad in the paper, or you had a conversation with the MRS and you're like, I need to move?

Nick: I've moved on several times in my career, and I suppose there's just a genuine belief that whatever I moved on to was a better [00:06:00] thing that more matched what I wanted to be doing more money is part of it, but if I like the idea of the outdoor industry more than the nursery industry, then that's a positive move.

Nick: So probably not too much more to it than that really. And then moving on from life and life systems. I'd experienced consultancy life in that year, placement, and then with the cookware agency, and I wanted to return to consultancy world. So that again, was just another one that was something that genuinely I felt was more in line with what I wanted to be doing.

Nick: I suppose it's not necessarily a negative catalyst that was a push, but just a pull towards something that I thought was more in line with what I wanted to be doing and how I wanted to be spending my. I guess we could call you a bit of a career romantic 

Fraser: . Could you share some specific strategies or techniques that you had at this time in your career to both move forward to the next role or just get better at the one you're doing right now?

Nick: I [00:07:00] suppose there's two things there, isn't it? There's growing in a role you're already in and then being more appealing to other companies, I suppose at that time I was very heavy. Getting on calls like this with whoever I could, that was further along than me, and that was something I was pretty relentless on.

Nick: Part of it's a numbers game in that a lot of people just don't respond, and a lot of people do respond, but then it never actually turns into a call. But there's a lot of people at businesses like Google and Fuse Project and ido. Zebra designed, there was a whole load of people that I've reached out to just to jump on calls and see what I could learn from them to craft a portfolio that was more appealing.

Nick: So I would say just week in, week out, for quite a while, there was calls happening like that, that was just informing the portfolio that was being built. And then I suppose after a certain amount of time, there was a portfolio that was enough [00:08:00] to land the role at IDC. 

Fraser: I'm pretty glad that you picked up our call, , I guess you could call this networking.

Fraser: Was there much in the way of building a relationship during this process? 

Nick: I think a lot of people see networking as negative. Bullish, quite boisterous. The word networking. I think a lot of people are turned off by it, but I think if you just wipe from your memory whatever you think networking is, and just picture someone who's young looking to deepen their knowledge, get closer to their goals.

Nick: Has identified someone who's further down the path than them that they think they can learn from. It's all just pretty genuine stuff, and I think it comes from an inquisitive and quite authentic place. For some reason, there's a bit of a negative feeling around networking, but I think when you frame it in that way, that's just more about learning.

Nick: You can come across someone who you think there's a person worth. And although you might not feel like you've got much to offer them [00:09:00] because you're maybe 20 years behind in your career, there's a genuine relationship to be built. Just trying to get on calls and just be around these people and absorb from them, that is definitely valuable.

Fraser: You spoke to all these people. What was the key learnings that you got out of that? 

Nick: So the calls at that time were specifically around the portfolio. By the way, I still have these calls now as a design director. It's just those conversations are about much more complex things than building a portfolio.

Nick: I've done this my entire career. It's just the conversations change as you grow and take on different responsibilities. But at that time, it was pretty much purely just focused on building a portfolio that was more appealing. 

Fraser: But I imagine these days a lot of people are calling you as. 

Nick: I suppose because I'd learnt so much from so many people who were very highly respected across the industry.

Nick: There was a woman called Amina Hark who wrote a book called Breaking in [00:10:00] Product Design. In that book, she interviews 100 design directors. I just literally went through the book and contacted almost everyone in it because I felt like I'd learnt so much. I was sharing some of that through blog articles and different videos and giving talks at different universities across the uk.

Nick: And because I was talking about this stuff and writing guest articles for different publications online and stuff, I quickly became a guy that people were then sending me their portfolio quite a lot, and then I was trying to give back as much as possible, but I just couldn't have a life and do all of that at the same time.

Nick: So that's when I turned it into a more one-to-one specific mentoring, which I've called my portfolio improvement program. So that's been going for about the last six or seven years. So I still give talks and jump on stuff like this and help people, particularly students and graduates. But for anyone who say pass that point, maybe they're four years into their career and they're looking to revamp the [00:11:00] portfolio, then I've turned it into a more formal thing.

Nick: Cause I just couldn't keep up with the inquiries in the end. 

Fraser: Fair. Fair. In your opinion, with all this stuff in your head now, what were the common pitfalls or mistakes that designers are making and they should definitely avoid? 

Nick: I've seen what I think have been quite bad move. Early on it, it can be a slow burn.

Nick: And I think especially now with, I suppose comparison and social media and all of that stuff, is that an over obsession with title and salary can sometimes get in the way of what's the best learning opportunity that's in front of you right now? And that best learning opportunity might be for a job that possibly has a lower salary.

Nick: People make decisions and move companies based on salary from a big picture point of view, those salary jumps are relatively small, but they seem very big at the time, and I've just seen people jump to certain roles that might be [00:12:00] three grand more, let's say, but the role or company they've jumped to might actually have a lower ceiling.

Nick: You see some people over obsessing, over title and salary and not necessarily putting, well, what are you actually learning and what are you actually doing, and what's the richness of the experiences that you are getting in the role? For me, that at least always sat at the top of the list or at least doing the types of things that I wanted to be doing.

Nick: Like I. Designing lots of products in the outdoor industry, to me at least, felt more attractive to what I was doing before moving on to agency and having the variety and the responsibility of a new role in comparison to that felt like a better role again. So it was always, what am I doing that sat at the top of the tree for me, and I think that should be a guiding North Star.

Nick: Would you say a good 

Fraser: paraphrase for that would be to think about the consequences of these actions maybe in five or 10 years time? 

Nick: I think [00:13:00] so. It's not to say that always looking ahead is the healthiest thing to do either. There's a lot of merit. I know I was listening to the episode with John Marshall and he was talking about just being completely in the present.

Nick: Mm. To strike a balance between the two is important. 

Fraser: Let's say we've gotten a good portfolio, we've got our first steps in. What advice would you give to a designer who's five years 

Nick: into their career? I did a post about this recently at that level, you either have just gone into some more senior responsibilities or maybe have been promoted to senior, or maybe you feel like that should be happening soon.

Nick: I can appreciate that. It's a slightly itchy time for some designers that period. I definitely think that more exposure to meetings. And being in more higher level meetings is definitely a positive thing. And I got this from Tim Ferriss. He repeated it cuz he got it from Peter Teal and Peter Teal was talking about the value that you can get from being amongst [00:14:00] people who are selling and negotiating and pitching.

Nick: To be in as many meetings like that as possible at that level, it's just a good. When 

Fraser: you say Peter Teal, do you mean Peter Teal of the billionaire from PayPal? Yes. 

Nick: He wrote a book called Zero to One. I think Ferris has interviewed him a couple of times on his podcast. That's a good book, by the way, if I know it's not read Zero to One, but the idea of being in meetings where people are trying to persuade and pitch and sell and make higher level decisions, and you could say, I can't just make that happen overnight.

Nick: To some extent you can because I think there's lots of people in businesses who they don't actually make it clear what they want. And so there's a lot of value in just pulling your line manager for a meeting and just making it clear the types of things you'd love to be a part of. There's lots of people who would love to work on certain things, but they don't actually ever make it clear that they would love to do that.

Nick: And if you look at it from the [00:15:00] perspective of the manager, they're not mind reader. . In fact, there's a perfect example because I said this message to one of the guys that I manage, and he knew that a particular project was coming through the door. He said, look, I'd love to work on that. It wasn't actually gonna go to him, it was gonna go to someone else.

Nick: But because I knew that I could, you know, little juggle in resourcing and steered it towards him, and now he's gonna be working on that project, I suppose you can to some extent control what you do get exposed to just by proactively stating what you'd love to work. 

Fraser: What have you got a bit more of a difficult management with those sort of that FaceTime with the customers quite closely guarded.

Nick: I can only speak for my experiences, but it's not closely guarded at idc. We'll have people at all levels throughout the business who can get put in front of any client at any level and be part of those conversations. They might not be leading them, but at least to be exposed to it and be in it and be presenting work is definitely done at every level throughout the business, which means that they actually grow and learn faster as.[00:16:00] 

Nick: It's only a positive that you get a more competent team sooner. 

Fraser: All right. Well, you heard it here first. The best way to get a competent team sooner is to give everyone at every level exposure. 

Nick: Yeah. I think there's the balance to be struck as well on that. Mm-hmm. in terms of maintaining quality, but I definitely see it as a good thing to at least try to achieve a good balance on.

Nick: The other thing I'd say is in terms of that five year mark, not waiting for an invitation, some people could look at their job as well, this is my job and I'm just gonna do this job really well. And so over time, you could argue, again, if you look at it from the business's perspective and just take a step back.

Nick: If all you ever do is your current job very well, then the only thing you are ever proving you can do very well is that set of responsibilities. In a lot of people's minds, they might be thinking, if I do this well, I'll get asked to do a different level of task or get promoted. I suppose, in my experience, I think one thing that can make that [00:17:00] happen sooner is to be proactive.

Nick: Maybe you see a project manager or a senior designer come out of a meeting and they've got a certain task, or they need to write a proposal or put a project plan together. If you are aware of that, what about saying to that person, look, I know you are doing this, and it might be a, a high level task by a more senior employee and saying, do you mind if I have a crack at it so I save you a job, and then we sit down and review what I've done, that it might be not a hundred percent of the way there, but at least it got some level of traction made without your time.

Nick: And what will end up happening is you go and do some work. You'll learn from having done it. You go and sit down. You then get to learn because they'll tell you where you went wrong or a few pointers. But what will actually happen is that senior person, when this happens again, because they've sat down with you and they've seen you, you do what you did, who do you think they [00:18:00] would pass that task to?

Nick: They're gonna pass it to you because you've shown that proactiveness. Exposing yourself to higher value tasks is only a positive thing, and some businesses aren't as on it as they should be in training staff and giving the right level of exposure to more junior and middleweight staff. So if you are in a business that's like that, I like to think that I d C isn't, but if you're in a business that doesn't particularly share knowledge or there is a bit of a glass ceiling or doesn't give much training, Then proactively going after and getting that exposure and sitting down with people and saying that you want to take those tasks on, I think only leads to being given those high value tasks more in the future, which is more likely to lead to promotion sooner.

Fraser: Go grab the bone, so to speak. 

Nick: Yes. 

Fraser: Can you give any specific times where you've done this or any times where it didn't go as spectacular as it should have, and what did you learn from. [00:19:00] If you see something happening that isn't as effective as you think it should be, I suppose there's a few things you could do.

Fraser: You could just make one little comment or you could speak to lots of people about it, put a presentation together, understand the ideal solution, understand the problem to its full extent, and put a presentation together that puts forward a solution and all the implications of implementing it now.

Fraser: That's the type of person that's going to be trusted and get promoted sooner. Everyone who's listening, whatever business you're in, I'm sure if we all got them on this podcast and got them to rant about the company that they're in for an hour, they probably want more time. If that's the case, then there's obviously things that could be improved.

Fraser: Just pick one or two things to begin with and could you build out presentation. Suggests how it could be improved. And I suppose that's just something, particularly in the first two [00:20:00] years that my role at IDC was doing that quite often if you present enough things like this, then the people above you, the owner, the md, whoever it is, might latch onto one or two of them.

Fraser: And there might be others that maybe just don't have as much traction and maybe they've had a go at before, but it was too problematic or someone let them down trying to implement that. On a singular basis, you could see that as rejection or backfiring, but don't take it personally, just move on and have a crack at something else.

Fraser: There's the other thing as well, which is even if your suggestions aren't as thought through as what they might see as the perfect solution, it at least shows a genuine attitude that is trying to improve the business, which is only a positive thing as. 

Fraser: I will say that for anyone listening in the caveat would be is if you're gonna go do that, record it all and think about the opportunity costs before you do any 

Nick: implementation.

Nick: Yeah, don't dive into the implementation, but at least just sharing your [00:21:00] thinking with the people above you would be a good thing. The other one with consultancy life is that time is pretty precious. Time really should be billable as much as. So working on internal things, this is where the proactive nature of, there's a bit of doing this in your own time that comes into play here.

Nick: This is Nick and you are listening to Red, red, red.

Fraser: What do you think sets successful designers apart from those who struggle to advance their career? There's 

Nick: a story I tell to designers at a certain level, and I think it comes into play in terms of this question, which is this idea of a trust bank, and that if we just forget quality of design, just for now, let's say a situation's unfolded and there's a discussion as to what should be done and people are suggesting ideas, [00:22:00] and let's say you strongly disagree with what seems to be the direction that it's going in and the verdict that's being.

Nick: In that scenario, let's say you are person A and person A doesn't say anything. They disagree, but they don't really say, this is all wrong. We should be doing this instead and take the course of action that they don't actually agree with. They think it's wrong. They think there's risk, that it might not be effective.

Nick: And let's say it does all go wrong. That person, when it all goes wrong, can absolutely not say, oh, I did think this would happen. Cuz that's just the worst. And then let's say that there's person B in this same scenario who they did lay down their opinion and they had the courage to say what they thought was true, that there was risk, and stated a different course of action, and they articulated why it was better.

Nick: It takes confidence in quite a bit of courage to do that if it does go in a different direction to the one they said, and let's say [00:23:00] same thing happens again, it does all go wrong. And person B says nothing and just focuses on trying to now fix the issue. That's the sort of person people wanna work with, but also there's a bit of trust that's been earned in that everyone knows that person B said this without them having to make a big deal about it.

Nick: And so now the course of action that's kind of deemed most effective is what person B originally. These scenarios of having a debate and having a discussion to determine the best course of action In any scenario, this is happening day in, day out, week in, week out. This isn't like a rare opportunity to show your ideas if this scenario plays out again like that with person B.

Nick: It's only a matter of time before people just start going to person B and saying, we're thinking about this. What do you think? And so to be the person that people are coming to for their thoughts on what should be done is only gonna lead to progression and great responsibility, but it obviously [00:24:00] requires having the good ideas of what to do and how things should be.

Nick: The thing to remember there is that it was all possible only because of. Confidence and the courage, if you like, and the conviction to actually state what they thought was right. Ray Dalio was one of the greatest investors ever. Heads up a firm called Bridgewater Associates, which has the largest hedge fund in the world, launched a book called Principles where he talks about this idea of, uh, idea meritocracy, where the best ideas win out.

Nick: The important takeaway there is that even if you had good thoughts, and you were right, if nobody knew about it, because you never. Actually articulated your thoughts, then you are missing the opportunity to build this trust. So it's kind of this idea between the value that you have and the value that you can bring and the perceived value of what you actually do in a business.

Nick: And this same principle applies to clients and design work in its own right as well. But if you don't [00:25:00] focus on that perceived value and earning those trust points in the trust bank, you're never truly progressing in the eyes of those around you. I. As a strategy, I was 

Fraser: taught that when you level criticism against another proposal, you should do it not as outright criticism, but by asking qualifying questions like, what are the risks?

Fraser: What are the opportunity costs? How is this better than solution B? So on, on and so forth. Do you feel that it's not as ideal or, or it's a good way of qualifying your own thinking? 

Nick: No, it's a great way. Asking questions is a great way. You can ask questions to uncover the problems as a team, but if we're talking about individual growth and perceived value of an individual, the valuable bit though is in, as an individual, have you thought this through at some point, ideas have to be put forward.

Nick: And questions are a great way, and I, and I'm not talking about just outright criticizing other suggestions. It can be done fairly objectively to say, okay, [00:26:00] based on what we've seen in the past, if we did this, which is the suggestion from somebody else. Surely there's a greater chance of it failing because it happened on this project and this project.

Nick: And actually what I'm saying is more effective is that based on what we've seen over here, it's not really a Red Hat statement, I suppose, to refer to Edward Dub Bono, six thinking hats. It's not personal. There's a certain level of sterility to it around, look, we've seen that that doesn't work here and here.

Nick: And actually if we look here and here, we could argue that it might be a more effective. It's not just making personal statements on a whim and openly criticizing someone, but looking at it quite clinically and in a very thorough way. I just had this 

Fraser: line of thought sometimes the discussion, let's say we have three different solutions and solution A is the most expensive.

Fraser: How do you deal with a situation where your team wants to change or try out solution B and C? You know, all of them will work. A might be the most [00:27:00] expensive upfront, but the time sync to explore these different situations is actually more expensive than implementation of just solution A. 

Nick: Yeah, it's hard to comment on that without context, I suppose.

Nick: All of that just has to be weighed up for each individual. I appreciate what you're getting at. I think it's just quite a difficult one to answer without a specific example, any single meeting about any project or potential direction to go in. The first thing you'd normally get from me is about a hundred questions before an opinion, just to learn all of the context.

Nick: Jumping in with opinions without context is a dangerous if not foolish thing to do,

Intro Or Sweeper: rejected actor. . 

Fraser: In your experience, what role does continuing education and professional development play in a 

Nick: designer success? I'm probably not the person who would advocate educational institutions too much from the [00:28:00] portfolio improvement program that I mentioned before. I've just mentored and worked with and had very deep conversations with designers all over the world.

Nick: and one thing that's been interesting to see is the difference between the UK and America with regards to education. There seems to be, and people will definitely call in, all right and disagree with this, no doubt, but at least what I've seen is that in America there seems to be this thing of I, I'll just go and do a master's degree, and almost this sense that that's gonna solve everyth.

Nick: If you do a BA or a BSC, or MN or M des, whatever you're gonna do, and at the end of it you're applying for jobs and you don't land a job. A lot of people in that position think that if they've done a BA or a bsc, they think doing an MA is gonna solve the problem of landing a job. I don't believe that going and doing an MA is necessarily gonna automatically make [00:29:00] you a better designer.

Nick: You'll have had a bit more time to explore projects and maybe have done a few more projects, but the idea of being better and being more appealing to land a job, I'm not convinced that doing an MA or particularly a PhD is gonna spit out this incredible designer at the end. And then especially in comparison to, let's say someone did a BA versus someone who did a two year MA or a PhD.

Nick: If you took the BA student and threw them into a design consultancy for two or four years, I'm gonna take the person with industry experience every single time. This idea of leaving industry to go back to university as a vehicle for learning, being an industry arguably would teach you more than anything.

Nick: The other thing to say on that is that I've never ever view. Going to university as the total [00:30:00] sum of education. Let's just go back to my period of quite aggressively calling every design director under the sun. How much I learned from that. Some of that advice and some of those conversations and some of those relationships have been incredibly valuable.

Nick: I just think there's a lot of learning that can be done and should be done that doesn't involve a university. And if you actually speak to people who finish a four year BA or a four year bsc, and you said to them on last day, what was the most valuable thing in that four year period? Probably eight out of 10 would say the placement year, which was the time where you weren't at university and you were in industry.

Nick: So if you've graduated and you've landed a job and you're two years in and you're working in industry, this idea that going back to university as a means of learning and getting better, I'm not totally convinced. Don't see this as a criticism purely of educational institutions. It's a criticism of [00:31:00] educational institutions while simultaneously thinking about the cost of doing that.

Nick: I don't think you can detach the cost from it and that whole UK USA thing, people in the us from the amount of people that I've mentored and spoken to, there seems to be this thinking that if you get a master's degree that you should earn more, that you should have a higher salary. And I think in the UK that belief isn't there.

Nick: It's more that doing these extra qualifications might help me land a job, but that you shouldn't just earn more by default by having this extra qualification. It's definitely a difference that I've perceived from all the people I've spoken to across those two countries. No, 

Fraser: a hundred. I do wonder if this is the, the end result of having one system that is ultimately for profit versus one that is partially controlled and paid for by the king to be hyperbolic.

Nick: So there's one thing is as well, you're gonna leave industry working for a design director being surrounded by other [00:32:00] senior industrial designers or the mid-level industrial designers. You're gonna leave that day-to-day exposure to experienced people in industry to go and learn from people. Probably haven't worked in industry for one or two decades.

Nick: Mm-hmm. , it sounds very cynical and very negative. I've changed my tune on that a bit now, which is if someone's just very open-minded and will reach out to industry and learn from industry and stay up to date with what's needed to be prepared to go into, in. If they're open to that and have those conversations, and then they relay that and teach that, but they're constantly soaking up new knowledge from industry, then they're in a really good position to be very helpful to the students that they serve, who are their customers.

Nick: Let's not forget that. I've just known and met a bunch of tutors who don't have incredible industry experience, if any. What they're actually doing. In my view, a better [00:33:00] job of being a design tutor in a university than some people who have been tutors for 20 years who maybe had five years industry experience.

Nick: But if they're quite shut off from industry and have been for 15 to 20 years, the types of things that have being related to students, the relevance is questionable. There's lots of learning to be done that doesn't involve a university. 

Fraser: You could listen to a podcast, for example. Exactly. 

Will: Hint, 

Will: hint, . 

Fraser: If I was to distill what you've just said, if you feel like you're stagnating, you should find a way of taking on more responsibilities, 

Nick: or at least in your current responsibilities, getting back to being passionate about the craft.

Nick: You could create a bit of a nick of soundboard at my work and people could just hit buttons and repeat these points. And it's funny cuz some of them get repeated back to me, but there's one guy on our team, Luke, who I told him a story once of very often. It's the things in design that can be perceived as the most mundane [00:34:00] tasks that can actually be some of the most important, like communicating with factories and building specifications.

Nick: And I just told him the story of, well, let's say the next mundane task that you might get given. Ask yourself, what does this look like done to the highest standard of anyone in the world? And just to get really passionate about the craft of everything that's being given your way. So even if you're not seeking new responsibilities, even just to get passionate about the craft of taking whatever you currently do to a new level.

Nick: And get the views from experienced people outside of the company you work at. I think just more inputs of learning is a good part, but I think what you said is fair to say. Yeah. To take a different 

Fraser: track. How do you and your team normally find clients, and what kind of strategy would you recommend to people at different stages?

Nick: There's a bit of context here. That is sales and marketing and business in general, I suppose is a big piece of my responsibility at idc. And that came because it's just been a big part of [00:35:00] my life in terms of learning and being a practitioner in different things where sales and marketing have gone very deep in.

Nick: So sales and marketing is a massive piece and have mapped out our strategy. It's very difficult, I suppose, in this forum to explain that entire strategy. But it's doing a great job of what we do day to day so that we increase repeat work and we increase as many referrals as possible. Word of mouth can't really happen if there's not something great to talk about.

Nick: Suppose I'll just drop another book in there, which is Purple Cow by Seth Godin is well worth a read, which is just the principle of being remarkable and that a lot of business can be generated just on the back of quite a simple principle, which is if you are remarkable, you at least are worth remarking about, and if you are not and you kind of limiting repeat business and referral.

Nick: Outside of that, I think you framed it as attracting new clients. Referrals would be one of those, but SEO and, [00:36:00] and social media playing a huge part in that, which is only made possible through a content strategy that's sustainable. Can we be writing as an authority on a subject within different topics of discussion around what we do that brings value to our clients?

Nick: Putting enough love into our case studies. I think one thing in other businesses that I've worked in and arguably I D C in the past as well, is you can get to the end of a project and you are straight into another project and not enough time and dedication can go into making that case study as presentable and telling the full story to the best of its ability.

Nick: So putting more focus and energy into. . And so content is definitely playing a bigger and bigger part in that strategy, content and social and our website in SEO and creating lead magnets and a bit of paid advertising as well as jumping on things like this, and each individual member of the team being a part of that content creation system.[00:37:00] 

Nick: There'll be someone here who's listening right now who's never heard of Nick Chubb and never heard of idc, and now they do. And so I suppose this is evidence of part of that strategy and practice. Would 

Fraser: there ever be the more personal touch, you know, meeting someone at a conference, asking them about their day-to-day and what problems they have, what are their bug bears?

Nick: There's certain events that we will attend and give talks at as well. A good place of understanding what's on the minds of people is that if you can be a speaker and give talks at events and a q and a follows that, well, the questions that you are hearing in a Q and a session are evidence of what's on people's minds.

Nick: Obviously, it's only gonna be probably related to the talk that you gave, but giving talks and attending events is a part of that, but I suppose. Recap that. That's just one part. 

Fraser: We did get a piece of advice the other night from someone in the field and he said one of the best ways to be known, approached and to attract clients is to be quote unquote provocative.

Fraser: Would [00:38:00] you agree with that statement or would that be a double 

Nick: ledge sword? It depends what it is. You could be provocative for the sake of being provocative and turn every customer you wish to attract away from. If being provocative is a byproduct of saying something that you believe to be true, then that could be a positive.

Nick: But being provocative for the sake of it doesn't particularly sit well with me. , Jason Fried, who founded a company called 37 Signals that a piece of software called Basecamp that you might know for project management. Him and David Hannah Hansen wrote a book called Rework and he talks about how they built their customer base, incredibly successful business without any money really spent on marketing.

Nick: It was done through teaching and sharing knowledge with their audience. Their blog is called Signal versus Noyer, and I've always just been a firm believer that if you are just trying to promote yourself and market yourself, which ties into the being provocative part of what you're saying, if you are doing that, [00:39:00] but there's nothing of high value that you are directing that attention to, once you have it, then you're just creating noise, which I believe would actually have a negative effect in terms of.

Nick: But at the same time, being the best kept secret in town is also not as valuable as it could be cuz more people could know about that through better promotion and marketing. Having a great product or service, or at least some content that's valuable to some, in my opinion, should be the starting point.

Nick: If it's provocative as a byproduct of just saying something that you believe to be true or valuable, then so be it. This is Nixon. Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop. And you are listening to Redacted, redacted, redacted.

Fraser: What are the common challenges and strategies you have with managing client expectations? 

Nick: A big part of this is [00:40:00] that a lot of people are just presenting solutions and ideas. With an insufficient amount of context and proper framing and the thinking behind it. I know for a fact that I could present an idea or a concept and it would not go down well, and then perhaps might be some negative comments or some first thoughts.

Nick: But if I presented all of the thinking behind it as to why it was right, and then we get to it very often in presentations, I can receive comments. I can't see why it would be anything else, but if I just presented the final output without the context and the right storytelling and all the thinking that got there, you are doing yourself a disservice.

Nick: As a designer. An important mindset to have in terms of client management and expectation around this kind of feedback is don't see yourself as an option provider. I see a lot of businesses [00:41:00] and they see themselves as generators of ideas. And then just providing options. The goal should never be to provide options.

Nick: We're trying to design one singular product here, so it should be taking a very purposeful path. It's very, very rare that I would think that more than four different directions are equally valid. Hmm. And so if ideas and concepts and directions, if they're not equally valid, then they shouldn't be presented on the same.

Nick: That should then filter so that if there was only one or two that would deem to be the most appropriate. It's part of that storytelling and giving enough thinking in how things are presented. That's an important part of that management and expectation. I would just add 

Fraser: that my personal take is often to move with this attitude that you are not wasting the client's time and money.

Fraser: I think a lot of people in this field want to be seen as experts by their clients [00:42:00] instead of service providers. I often find that leads them into, without realizing it, drawing a noose around their neck. You know, they'll go two years down the pathway of this product and suddenly realize that it's only manufacturable in an academic.

Nick: Being very honest about, look what's out of scope. What do we believe should be done by someone else? Go and find someone who's world class at this thing that might be on the periphery or just outside of what we do. We'd advise, go and find someone who's world class at that because you wanna build a world class team around what you're trying to do here.

Nick: And so if you've got us on board for everything around the physical product, It comes back to that analogy of the trust bank is that if someone comes to you and it's something maybe on the periphery of what you do or just slightly outside of it, to recommend someone else who can offer that, and that's all they do.

Nick: You're building trust with the client as well. So yeah, being completely honest about what it is that you are providing [00:43:00] is definitely important Part of that. I actually see this in terms of articulating the thinking that builds to a direct. In some ways, in a consultancy, you have to do that. Where I actually see this as a problem is actually in-house.

Nick: There's in-house teams who people may be presenting to a board of directors, and I think they'd actually benefit by seeing themselves and approaching things more like an agency with the board of directors, as their client can often. Result in some approaches and mindsets and processes that can be beneficial to that in-house team, it's very easy to think, oh, well, we're all under the same roof, we're all the same team.

Nick: But if you're trying to change hearts and minds in a presentation and build towards a direction that people could have subjective opinion on. Improper preparation and articulating the thinking and telling that story is just gonna lead to more confusion at the end of it and seem like it could [00:44:00] be anything rather than a story that builds to one direction that's seen as the most appropriate.

Fraser: That whole story gave me physical pain. There was a specific project I've been told only do three slides for the presentation and I ended up doing 15 for the storytelling and we got it across the line, but I still got a scolding for using more than three 

Nick: slides. I mean, that's just nonsense. I always say to everyone that in any scenario in design, the process should be driven by the project, not the other way.

Nick: It's funny because we all talk about the design process and often I just sit here thinking, what do you mean the design process? There is no, the design process. There are tools and techniques and approaches, and for whatever the particular context in front of you demands, you choose a recipe that fits the need and tweak it when necessary.

Nick: Yeah, and so to say three slides is, in my view, just complete nonsense, 

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Fraser: How much good engineering practice should a good designer know and how much is too much? 

Nick: I would say that there's never too much unless it's compromising your design abilities. I think for manufacturing more so than engineering.

Nick: Now, you could get into semantics of what exactly do I mean by that, but in my view, designers should have a complete understanding of what manufacturing constraints are involved in different manufacturing techniques that impact the design. That is an absolute in terms of engineering, the ability to carry out finite element analysis and engineering calculations, and the more pure mathematics side of it is not necessary.

Nick: But I would say that from a, how things go together, how are things assembled, how do things work, understanding of different types of components in [00:46:00] systems, and right at the top of that is understanding the. Parameters involved with different manufacturing techniques. That would be right at the top. The difference between design and industrial design is that industrial design is the design of products for mass production.

Nick: That's all it is. And so the fact that it's that added bit on the end, if you just design a table and that table goes in your living room, that is not industrial design. As much as Instagram will tell you that it is, it isn't. Industrial design is the design of products for mass production. And so if you were gonna design and make one table that goes in your living room, you are designing it, knowing what you can do with your hands and in your woodworking workshop.

Nick: Whether it's cheap metal fabrication or whether it's injection molding or low molding or whatever it is, that's the equivalent of your hands for an industrial designer. So I would put manufacturing at the top of that list. There's probably a few more [00:47:00] bits you could go into mechanics, but there's definitely a level that has diminishing returns in terms of engineering from the more calculations side of it.

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Fraser: Realistically, what kind of career goals can one set in their design career, and at what point should they be achieving them or reevaluating 

Nick: them? For me at least, I wanted to be developing products that would actually go into production so that they could actually benefit.

Nick: I didn't become a designer to design fictitious concepts that never actually got into the hands of users. I'm passionate about products and designing products that help users and create better experiences and solve problems, and that can't be done if it only [00:48:00] ever lives on a screen. The goal of mine was just to be continually in roles that are actually getting products to.

Nick: I think that could be a suitable goal, but other people might have an interest in more of a conceptual side. Obviously it depends on the person, but I can only speak for me that that was definitely one of those. And then to work on products that were doing good in the world, developing medical devices and surgical products, as well as products that serve businesses and people as well as end users.

Nick: I think in terms of climbing the ladder, particularly at the beginning, people might just be thinking, right, I want to be a design manager or head of design, a brand like this. I definitely felt similar thoughts that were more around maybe salary and title, but as time passes, in my experience and of more experienced people that I've spoken to, it only becomes more and more important in terms of what are they actually doing?[00:49:00] 

Nick: With their time, what are they actually working on? Who are they working with? What are they responsible for? Becomes more and more the thing at the top of the pyramid rather than salary or title and all the rest of it. And for anyone who's listening who's 22, 23, it won't belong before they are offered jobs for more money than they are on that they actually say no to.

Nick: I would say that that would play out for most. You're listening to Redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted. 

Fraser: To the veterans out there, what piece of advice do they need 

Nick: to hear? There's a lot of things you can get caught up in. And just to return to the craft, the quality of what we're doing.

Nick: I'm saying this cuz I can picture probably two or three people that I know that have really experienced people. There's a lot of stuff that as you grow in responsibility in different businesses, but it's only natural that you are dealing with more and more things that [00:50:00] often have less and less to do with designing.

Nick: And that's management of people. That's management of clients, management of budgets, projects, project plans and marketing and business development, recruitment and all the rest of it. I suppose a message would. Redialing into the beauty of the craft of industrial design. Falling in love with that again, and seeing the stuff at the lower level, taking maybe a deeper care at the quality of execution at that level is normally something that at least gives me more energy and makes me smile.

Nick: You're not 

Fraser: suggesting that they take some time out and design a 

Nick: chair, are you? wouldn't be industrial design . I've already covered that. 

Fraser: What if they can make at least a thousand of them ? 

Nick: It's a good question. You know, at what quantity does it become industrial design? But we're all human. We all get bogged down in different things.

Nick: But I suppose that's just something that I tend to return to. Thank you very 

Fraser: much, Nick, for sharing a story with us and parting some much needed advice. We really [00:51:00] appreciate it and I hope the listeners out there also really. Brilliant. 

Nick: Cheers guys. 

Fraser: Be sure to check out the episode description for links to anything we've mentioned and let us know your thoughts.

Fraser: And until next time you've been listening to

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