Yeah people you heard right - Creative Consulting. I call it the "Art of Consulting' - the kind of consulting that brings effectiveness in your business.
Imagine the standard case of marketing projects nowadays. A company needs to transform it's business digitally. Sure we need to talk and plan in detail about the process, the way of implementation, timelines, need for changes inside the company and it's departments and so on ... But mostly your friendly neighborhood consulting agency already burned the budget in the concept-phase (no matter if we all work 'agile' today). And hand on heart, nobody of these fine consulters knows how to realize the 'fancy' PPT-slides when it comes down to the production of UX/UI and Design - just because they don't know how. Their profession is simply a different one. But the profession of a good Designer should always include a lot of the profession of a consulter.
That's why I always demand from designers of all kind to be able to explain their design-decisions. These should always be strategic and not only fancy-pants. And that's why f.e. no project manager should ever go into a client-meeting without the responsible designer. project management is just not allowed to explain or consult on it's own (or at all) when it comes to strategic decisions - period. And effective consulting groups should always have their designer involved in the concept-phase from the very beginning. Unfortunately this is still not the standard approach to the disadvantage of many clients. And unfortunately this is not the standard self-image of the average designer out there.
Creative Consulting means to be product-oriented from the very first step in the process. A good designer or consulter is always 'like water' (Bruce Lee quote for the win), always like an 'x' variable in the formula - formless and always adaptable to the different tasks ahead, although experienced and confident as a person - trustworthy and honest to the client because with 'great power comes great responsibility' (Spiderman quote for the win).
Everybody who knows me, knows about my direct way to communicate without the whole 'Blabla' - I want your business to be successful in order to stay successful myself and that means I don't want to waste your time and budget.
And last but not least - I do promote myself in a 'loud' and some may say 'egocentric way' here... well, sorry, it's my portfolio and that's how I am! In my opinion a representation of yourself should be you and not what a trend or anybody expects from you (or what people are used to). Apart from that it's fun to be loud because it's honest :) So is this 'Thoughts/Blog' where I put my stuff out spontaneously. And apart from all the bullshit I'm quite a nice guy.
I started out in the fine arts and slowly transmuted into the marketing world over the years (where many people are loud because they're stressed out not because they have fun). My approach is always holistic and as soon as we talk about a briefing or demand my brain starts to work and I can't do nothing about it - I start to feel and envision a solution in my mind like a picture and want to put it out there. Call me your X-Man if you like ^^ (another nice and nerdy comic-reference).
More to come...
Stay sexy and 'Ghettofist of Love' to all of you out there!
(Image: Wolverine from the X-Men in my sketchbook)
