2019 Year In Review
2019 Trischler Design Co. reel
2019 was a great year.
Here are a few highlights.
Four brand identities
A brand identity is like a wardrobe. It gives you the tools to present yourself—your Big Idea—to your audience. It’s more than just a logo; it’s how you express your message to the people it can help. We love working on brand identity projects. In 2019 we worked on four of them. Including an architecturally-rooted interior design studio in Salt Lake City, Utah (see below), and a future-forward 3D laser scanning company in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Here’s what a client said about the brand identity process:
“This, by far, has been one, if not the best, experiences I’ve had as a client. I always felt informed, essential, and valued. D.J.’s calm yet authoritative demeanor always made me feel confident in the decisions the team was making. It was effortless for us to understand how, why, and what we could experience as a result of this rebranding process.”
Identity Design for Natasha Wallis Interior Design.
Five messaging and strategy workshops
Messaging and strategy workshops help businesses, organizations, and individuals feel less chaotic and more connected to their core purpose. It’s a lot easier to build a brand identity with a workshop. It’s the starting point, but they don’t always lead to brand identities. For instance, one of our workshops this year was with an author. The purpose was to hone the Big Idea of their book so to form a better connection with potential publishers. A few months later, the author had a publisher, in part due to the workshop (see quote below). Another workshop acted as a kick-off session for a documentary film project about students at a technical high school. The goal of the doc is to change people’s perspectives of tech schools and promote alternative career pathways instead of only directing kids toward college.
Here’s what the author had to say about the workshop:
“Within three months of doing a half-day workshop, I’m signing a publishing contract. The publisher specifically quoted several phrases that I shaped in my workshop with D.J. as the reason they got excited about my book!”
Three classes taught
I enjoy splitting my time between practice and teaching. The different modes inform one another and shape two of the three legs in the metaphorical three-legged stool that is my work. While teaching, I end up learning. I get to practice what I’m learning with my company and share back the results with my students. It’s hard for me to imagine not teaching, and I was thrilled to expand from one semester a year to three semesters in 2019. Classes included two semesters of the senior capstone for communication design students and a semester of user-centered design for communication and fashion design students.
Students in my User-Centered Design lecture.
Fifty-nine codes of ethics written
As an extra-credit assignment, I asked the students of my user-centered design course to write their own code of ethics for their professional practice. I wrote my own because it wouldn’t be fair to ask them to do something I hadn’t already done. I’m finding that having a code is a lot like having principles. They’re not necessarily rules, but guides. It’s helpful to have them when making decisions, both big and small, professionally and personally. You can read my code here. I’ve included links to what the students wrote in the same post.
Illustration from the Trischler Design Co. code of ethics article.
One class
The third leg of my metaphorical three-legged stool is my new role as a student. In 2019, I took a class on design research methods from the Masters of Design program at the University of Cincinnati, DAAP. The course taught me that, more than anything else, research is hard. The work is never finished, but the aim is to have enough information to write a book. As a bonus, I got to know some of my family members on a much deeper level through a trans-generational research project. I also experienced working with a team of fellow students as we dove into the challenges of global aging. I’m used to mostly working solor, and the group work was a great teacher for me this semester.
A visual representation of the information gathered from interviewing family members.
Three design research projects
“In design, you’re solving for user needs and business goals. In research, you’re solving for a lack of information.” These are the words of Erika Hall from her book Just Enough Research. In other words, a design project ends with a “thing” like a logo, website, brochure, etc. A research project ends when there’s enough information to inform decisions made in a design project (or, there’s enough information to write a book - see above). Trischler Design’s work in this area included projects where we identified what donors are investing in when backing an educational non-profit, described why foundations and donors join a Catholic philanthropic network, and we evaluated the customer experience at a local flooring company.
Twelve newsletters sent
I hate big social media sites (I’ll save the reasons for another post). That’s why I started a little email newsletter with a mailing list of close friends, colleagues, and clients. It’s been hard to completely step away from social media. The encouraging thoughts of Cal Newport (who isn’t on social media) helps. I’ve been gradually moving more towards my own personal outlets (like this blog and the newsletter). Thank you to all of you who continue to receive my monthly updates (and respond with kind words). I sent out an update for every month of 2019, and, though it’s humble, subscribers have increased organically from my original list of 50 something to 70 something.
One reader shared that it’s the only content they receive that doesn’t have to do with politics (that’s good). Another person responds to practically every email, which leads to a lunch date almost every month. Someone else shared that it’s one of the only newsletters that they read. That means a lot coming from a person that I look up to both professionally and personally.
Issue 01 of the Trischler Design Co. newsletter
Twenty-two articles
Through design, we communicate with essential elements like colors and shapes. In writing, we also communicate with shapes. Characters are shapes that form words. Writing is design, and design is writing in that sense. I feel compelled to do both. Historically, I am stronger with the colors and shapes. However, I’ve been working my writing muscles over the years, and I think my writing is getting better (it helps to have an editor and Grammarly). In 2019 I tried to write something every month. On average I wrote more than one article. That’s satisfying.
Three websites designed
Websites are like business cards. Whether you like them or not, you need one. They don’t have to be complicated. The sites we work on are digital brochures. They share the necessary information that people need to make a decision like picking a restaurant, touring a co-working space, or setting up a product demo. Websites are not our primary business. We only work on them when they follow a workshop or brand identity, as was the case of each of the sites we worked on in 2019.
The Littlefield website.
Three annual reports designed
It’s always fun to work on a yearly report. An annual report is how organizations communicate with their donors and stakeholder about the results of their investments. We learned from a previous design research project that most people don’t have the time to read annual reports, so we keep the content to a minimum and make them stand out. Similar to websites, annual reports are not our focus. Each of the report projects we worked on in 2019 came from clients we had done extensive work with prior.
Annual report design for Villedge.
One intern
Teaching is fun, but it’s hard to give individual students attention for extended periods. Having an intern is like teaching, but in the studio, on real projects, with more time, and customized to the individual. That was one of the reason that I sought an intern for Trischler Design Co.
Additionally, it’s helpful to have extra support on projects and promotions for the company. I was lucky to be introduced to Jensen, our summer 2019 intern, through my friend Josh who saw on the TDC blog that I was looking for an intern (hey, blogging pays off). Throughout the summer, Jensen set type, photographed projects, scheduled and posted social media, designed an identity, and offered a new perspective on projects. I very much enjoyed the experience and hope to have the opportunity to have more interns. I’m not really looking at the moment, but if the right person came around, I’d consider it.
Jensen Healey our summer intern. Photo credit: Jensen Healey
One foreign country visited
Megan (my lovely wife) and I went to Guatemala with our church. I took pictures of typography along the way. It gives me warm feelings to witness weathered hand-painted signs by anonymous designers (who may not call themselves designers). Traveling is vital for everyone, but for designers, it’s is especially valuable. It expands our visual palette and knowledge of the world. Most design looks the same because most designers are looking at the same things. It’s helpful to go to places where no one else is looking, like a less-visited foreign country, region, or city. That doesn’t mean you have to travel far. You could simply go to your local library and borrow a book or movie about somewhere, someone, or something that no one else is paying attention too.
One design conference attended
I’d preferably visit a foreign country than go to a design conference. The former is much more fertile for creativity. That said, I’m a big fan of Michael Beirut, and Jessica Helfand’s work and decided to attend the 2019 Design Observer Conference at MIT. It was worth it. I learned a lot and made a new friend from D.C. who I’ve continued to correspond with via email.
Tote bag from The Design of Business | Business of Design Conference at MIT.
One polar bear posted on Instagram
Last, but definitely not least, is a sketch I made of a polar bear. It brings me much joy. Though I never intended it to be a polar bear or anything for that matter. It was a part of an exercise I gave to my capstone students to provoke less thinking and more doing. The first step is to randomly make lines on a page. The second step is to discern an image in the lines and exaggerate the image. I went a little further and added the image to a tote and beer can.
Polar bear sketch.
Thanks for reading!
It’s been a good year, indeed. I sincerely hope the same for you. There’s a lot of links to poke around above. Stay awhile. I hope you find something to keep, or share along the way. Send a note if you like. I’d love to hear from you.