Ginger +1
Posted on September 5, 2011 by: Andrew
It’s Sunday evening on a long weekend and I’m busy spending an evening at the office prepping everything for the new designer, Erin, to take her seat come Tuesday morning. New laptops need setting up, software needs installing, new data management policies / hardware need to be designed and executed and installed, etc etc. I won’t bore you with details…suffice to say how excited I am to be sitting here doing this right now. It’s been a long, two year road to get to this point. It’s no secret that it takes a lot of work to get a business off the ground and I’ve spent many a late, lonely night in this office working on this or that. While there will be much more hard work to come, it’s going to be nice to have some company in here. One of the hardest parts of the adventure so far has been going it alone.
To those of you following the Ginger story, I’d like to start by saying thank you. Things are really starting to heat up around here. Business is growing at an amazing steady & sustainable rate. We’ve expanded to two full-time and two part-time staffers with some pretty exciting plans coming down the pipe. Not to mention a few awesome surprises lying in wait. The dream is slowly taking shape.
One of my largest hurdles, as of late, has been balancing running the business with spending time working on the multitude of projects which sustain the whole thing. It is going to be an amazing weight off my shoulders to be able to split up tasks appropriately, to have new options and ideas at play. A whole new set of resources and experiences to contribute to the whole.
When speaking with some of my clients regarding bringing a junior designer into the mix, I got the sense that there was some apprehension around the level of experience being brought to their projects. I thought, “What better way to recant my vision for the design team than via the Ginger Blog!” So here it goes.
When I came to realization that it was finally time to take the plunge and bring on another designer, I knew that I had a very interesting challenge ahead of me. The design industry is a particular beast. There is a shortage of design jobs, an over abundance of grads looking for their shot, and a major disconnect between technical expertise and design stylings, and a lack of experienced candidates. All of these factors combine into a perplexing challenge.
So, in the Ginger tradition, I went about it by finding a new approach to an old problem. I didn’t go trying to find that one super amazing awesome design talent to take on the world alone, I went looking to find that super amazing compliment to my talents. I was looking to add a new layer to the process, not just have another body to throw work at. While interviewing, I kept a keen eye for how I predict our skills would meld. In that, I think I was quite successful. The final step in the hiring process was to bring in design candidates to work through real client projects with me. The thing that really set Erin apart was her willingness to work with me, to take constructive feedback and to even seek it out. In working together on design concepts for this year’s Bullying Day posters for Bullying Canada, I discovered that Erin has self taught skills that applied excellently to the project. I could see the passion for design a mile away. Another thing that impressed was while I was taking a minute to show her how to handle a particular challenge, she offered a much better solution I hadn’t thought of. I happily took her advice and we pumped out some great work (not to mention the client loved it on the first go). I really feel like us working together resulted in a much better creative piece than what may have happened otherwise.
So, let me end by saying that I am really looking forward to the next phase in Ginger’s growth. To many new happy clients, happy repeat customers, community sponsorships and amazing memories along the way. Not to mention the beginnings of a fun, energetic & driven design team.
Thanks for sharing in the adventure!
Andrew
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