STEPHEN BASS

Year Graduation / Grade
1992 / 2:1

I left the North for London in 1993. I had hoped to design record covers but was employed into the corporate identity team at Design House which pretty much set the tone for my whole career.

I sat opposite John who moved to Dewe Rogerson and employed me there a year later. On leaving I was interviewed at Saatchi Design by Mike who I had previously worked with at Design House and stayed there for a year.

I got a call from Sally (my Saatchi managing director who had moved to Interbrand Amsterdam) asking if I wanted an interview with the President of Interbrand US who was there and looking for a creative director for their New York office. The next day I flew out to Amsterdam for an interview (thankfully without my portfolio) and two weeks later I was living in the Gramercy Park hotel.

In New York I started working with Kris, the managing director of Interbrand’s naming office in Chicago, and after six months I went out there to set up the office’s design department and help win new business from across the Mid-West.

Two years later I returned to England and worked from home on jobs passed to me by Kris and Anne (a strategy consultant I had met at Interbrand New York). In 2004 I went to Bite on the recommendation of Simon, an account director from the Dewe Rogerson days. Bite was sold to the Loewy Group and I was restructured into The Team.

I’m now back working with Keith who originally set up Bite.

How and where did you secure your first job?
I sent out a CV, business card and letter followed up with a phone call, nothing too exciting. I wanted something on the letterhead and a logo seemed a bit pretentious, but I noticed some small white fluffy adhesive backed circles meant for protecting table tops and thought that they could do the job. People seemed to like the idea of a business card you felt more than saw and it lead to my first freelance position at Fresco Design in Manchester. The defining experience was getting a horrendous spelling mistake into print… not for the last time.

Do you think being a Preston student has benefited you in any way?
It provided me with a portfolio that was good enough to get my first job and the message that we design with our minds not just our eyes.

How has the industry changed over the years in your experience?
The impact of technology has been huge.

I started just as the first computers were coming into the studio. In those days an idea could take a long time to be realised as there were many links in the chain – designers, typographers, typesetters, visualisers, retouchers, paste-up artists, and so on. But what used to take a team a fortnight can now be done by a single designer in an afternoon. This has made the job more solitary removing the creative opportunities and the fun that come through collaboration across complimentary disciplines. It has also resulted in designers getting even more caught up in producing rather than designing.

Unfortunately, expectations around speed of delivery are often driven more by what the technology is capable of than what the human can achieve. As technology allows us to work faster there is a temptation for agencies to plan more jobs into ever-smaller time slots. The pressure to generate quality thinking and execution under these conditions can be brutal and it takes its toll on people and their work.

However, technology has obviously brought amazing opportunities. I designed a visual identity system for a large hospital products company in Chicago from a little flat in Archway. I had one face-to-face meeting, and the rest was done with a laptop and email. Their signage audit was a hundred digital pictures taken around the US on different people’s phones. That would have been thought of as science fiction when I left Preston.

Where do you get your ideas from? Do you prefer collaboration or thinking alone.
Research helps me a lot. The more I know, the more I have to draw on.

I like a process of doing, then evaluating what I’ve done, then doing, then evaluating some more – ready, fire, aim – it can get you to places very quickly and intuitively. I tend to have a similar approach to collaboration (although it depends on the job); I like to work away from the group to collect my thoughts and experiment, then share and discuss what I’ve done with the group, and then go away to work around our thoughts, etc.

I imagine hypothetical presentations at different stages of the job. Even when I haven’t a clue what design or idea I’m presenting yet I’ve found that interesting thoughts and directions come out of it. This has also helped to solidify where I am up to when everything feels fuzzy.

What would you have done differently at University knowing what you know now?
Nothing that relates to design.

What’s the best thing about your job?
Working with bright and interesting people.

What would you say has been the key to your success so far?
Hard work, pragmatism and good manners.

I’ve always liked the description of ‘commercial artist’ more than ‘graphic designer’. I have never understood the designer who complains about having to use stock shots of a dolphin because there isn’t the budget to photograph one, or the designer who thinks it’s cool and rebellious to believe project managers and consultants are their natural enemies.

I’ve been in very corporate environments and have worked hard to be able to talk to clients about the relevance of design/brand in a way that is objective and in words they understand. I’ve been lucky enough to see some great people present at a high level and so understand that making a presentation is telling a story, and sequencing that story well is crucial. (It’s also worth noting that those who present in the most relaxed and off-the-cuff style tend to be the people who have prepared and practiced hardest over the years).

What is the most unusual thing you have done in your career?
Maybe trying to explain to the CEO of a German gas company that his ideas for a logo were looking suspiciously like the swastika.

What do you look for in graduates and their portfolios?
Someone friendly, enthusiastic and thoughtful. While computer skills and a certain feel for design in the real world are important, I like student work that gives a sense of a graduate’s personality as both a designer and person; there are so few opportunities to really express yourself in commercial work it seems a shame not to do so at college.

It’s important to see how people take criticism of their work – an interview can easily become a portfolio surgery and it’s revealing to see who embraces that and who doesn’t. I am looking for someone I think will flourish doing the work we do with the people they will be doing it with. No matter how great a portfolio is, if I don’t think the person will fit then they, and we, won’t be happy.

Any advice for students entering the industry?
‘The industry’ comes in lots of shapes and sizes. It’s easy for students to get pulled into an assumption that if you don’t work at X company, or win X award, you are worthless. These aren’t the only definition of success and there are many areas of design that are relevant and important despite having different levels of glamour attached to them. If, for example, you want to use design to actually make a difference to someone, helping a small local business or charity from within an ‘unknown’ agency might get you closer to that goal than being a tiny cog in a huge global account. Actually, just being able to use your training to support yourself in these tough times can be considered an achievement.

No matter what they might say up front, most companies aren’t trailblazers and would never take the creative risks required to lead the pack. It can be tempting to design over your client’s head in an attempt to prove something to yourself or your peers, but even if you can get the client to buy what you’ve done, they will loose faith in it fast. Do your best to move clients to the most creative solution THEY can really embrace – a brand that can’t be signed-up to is worthless no matter how beautiful it is on paper.

Be helpful, diligent, team-minded, have opinions but don’t be cocky and people will champion you throughout your career.

Don’t forget to check your spelling.

MY FINAL THOUGHT – Keep your portfolio up to date! Trying to scrape together a bit of work for this made me wish I had.