Learning about the Industry - Tom Maurice

Today we met Tom Maurice, who is a member of the Sun House Design team. Sun House Design works with larger businesses and companies doing graphic work, most recently branding and logo design. Sun House Design was founded in 2008, and consists of a team of around six designers who work on multiple projects for a number of clients, in the last few years they have been working for some big companies. They have kept their business small to make best use of funding. Tom himself is a good communicator and very knowledgeable about the industry; he has a degree in Graphic Design where he studied at the University of Edinburgh. He started out working temp jobs and eventually got a place in the BBC for five years, he then found a placement at Bristol based Epoch Design as a designer. He found that he had a skill in working with clients and this eventually led to him to do design work for them. Tom has worked with many big companies, names like the BBC, Marmite, Master Chef, Danone and Selfridges. An upcoming movie in 2013 based on the 2002 series; ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ is scheduled for release and the company behind it were on the market for a redesign of the old logo. Sun House, (along with some other design companies) were paid three thousand to come up with some potential logos and then pitch them. Sun House spent a total of ten thousand to fund the facilities, wages and pitch so they were making a bit of a gamble. They spent a lot of money and put a lot of effort into something which might work out as a big loss so there are definitely risks to this business. Sun House came up with many variations of logos for Walking with Dinosaurs and considered every medium of the usage (in film posters, merchandising and more). I hope they get this job as they have put so much effort and money into it and have come out with some excellent designs and logos, although they know the risk of losing out is possible, the benefit of the win though is worth the risk of losing it seems. I learned the importance of really getting into the brief of the client and experimenting with multiple designs, examining the existing market thoroughly, looking at intrinsic and extrinsic values of existing designs in that field as well as noticing clichés. Also it is good to show your design (if relevant) in realistic scenarios, like on billboards, posters, even if it’s just superimposing on an existing advertisement. The clients really like to see what the finished design will look like when displayed as such. When it comes to logos, it is fundamental to consider the logo for all mediums. It’s no good making complex multi-coloured logos if they don’t work on shop windows or are illegible in black and white. Take care when making a logo and consider this or create suitable renditions for specific scenarios. There is also no harm in using other designs for inspiration; designs can always be modified to avoid plagiarism. Pitching to clients in paper is often more professional then using a big screen projector, there is a feeling with a high-quality colour print which can’t be unmatched and there will be no issues with any software or decreased quality on an A1/A2 paper board. Client Relations are very important to uphold and a good relationship with a client is good for your image as well as for business. Don’t go burning bridges between clients as it might come back to bite you in the future, Tom couldn’t stress this enough.