Work Experience: Placement at McCadden - Day 1

Speaking to Neil (McCadden Creative Director)

Initially I spoke to Creative Director Neil McCadden, who gave me great insight into McCadden as a business, their design process and some information on McCadden's main clients. McCadden is known by its good reputation and high quality creative design solutions. Major clients include Translink, out of Belfast's 12 city councils McCadden are responsible for 5 of these, Made in Belfast and Visit Belfast are also clients. The design process at McCadden is largely focused on the research aspect through brand strategy. This includes focus groups, interviews and gathering inspiration from existing design work and relevant key words or phrases to influence the design process and later generate ideas. Brief strategy is the starting point later focal points can include brand positioning at the very early stages of brand strategy. 

This is effective as it shows how clear and effective the idea is before visuals are attached. Neil further suggested to chat with other designers in the studio as each person has a different role or a specific client allocated to them. The design process at McCadden also includes working collaboratively to gather different viewpoints and areas of expertise. For example I chatted to Anne who has 30+ years experience but she focused her studies on information design so her role within McCadden is brand strategy which is then supported by collaborating with other designers to build and translate her ideas visually. 

Speaking with other Designers

Speaking with other designers I was able to look into McCadden's design process in greater detail. This also highlighted how McCadden work productively individually and collaboratively, in order to gather a range of viewpoints. Chatting to other designers also encouraged me to consider how different brand names can effect the design. After seeing my illustrations the designers also suggested to look into Ospoke an illustration agency based in Belfast. McCadden use Ospoke for any illustrations required when relevant to the brief. Talking amongst the designers about their work also informed me how the designer in most cases does have a role in copywriting, which I will further research to greater inform my practice. Discussions also highlighted how it can be difficult to work with clients due to sometimes it being necessary to show the client what doesn't work. When presenting an idea show a limit of 3 ideas and then the ideas application. For stock images McCadden generally use iStock, shuttershock and for highest quality stock images getty. Below shows a more in detail breakdown of McCadden's design process. 

Step 1: Initiation Meeting - sessions with the client & focus groups  
Step 2: Focus Groups - 2 or 3 different groups of people e.g. including employees or strategic partners 
Step 3: Brand Archetype cards - (personalities) e.g. the artist, the king the maverick
Step 4: Build brand around the archetype
Step 5: Gather other ideas from existing things, including words, images and typefaces 
Step 6: Brand Naming 
Step 7: Brand descriptor 

Brand pillars can include, place, experience, environment etc. 

Brand pillar - values - personality - essence/concept

What have I learnt?
I have learnt a lot even from my first day at McCadden, I have really reinforced the importance of research and different methods due to McCadden's main focus starting a brief as brand strategy or research and the importance of rough sketches or ideas before focusing on any digital work. I will be sure to implement this way of working across my extended practice. I have also learnt new ways of generating ideas by thinking not only of the concept but can it be developed? As well as looking into word associations, phrases and images that can spark ideas. Today also highlighted the importance of feedback, to get a different viewpoint on a design is essentially to ensure it visually translates.