Who is Mark Boulton?
Mark Boulton is a graphic designer living in South Wales with his wife and two daughters.

He currently runs a small design studio, Mark Boulton Design, where he works with clients such as ESPN, Warner Bros, BBC, British Energy and Drupal. In the past, he has worked for the BBC and Agency.com designing wonderful experiences for all manner of clients and people across the world. He is also co-founder of small publishing imprint, Five Simple Steps, where they publish practical design books for the web community.

Mark has gifted the typographic community with an abbreviated but insightful series of writings about how to better one’s typographic prowess. They’re from a while back, but quite worth the read if you ever spend time setting type in any form, whether for print or web. It has definitely enhanced the framework I use to set type. I’d say more, but I would rather you spend the time reading the articles.

So without any further rambling I present the “Simple Steps…” series:

• Part 1: Measure the Measure
• Part 2: Hanging Punctuation
• Part 3: Ligatures
• Part 4: Typographic Hierarchy – size
• Part 5: Typographic Hierarchy – weight

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Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication. ~ Leonardo Di Vinci

I knew I liked this guy. I think it’s easy in this day and age to over-design something. Simple communicates and allows for focus.

Think more, design less.

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Getting clarity is tough. At times it’s quite a battle. Having to navigate the murky waters of the creative process riddled with dozens of opinions, personal preferences, and mis-information can cause your motivation and zeal toward the chance of creating something new to capsize under the lack of clear direction. There is little more discouraging than realizing all that could be done, yet having no clear direction as to which path to take.

Clarity is crucial. But can we realistically expect clients to know exactly what they want? If they knew exactly what they wanted, why wouldn’t they just make it themselves? I’m not saying designers have all the answers, but one thing we most definitely should be armed with is great questions. After all, it’s tough to find great answers when you’re not asking great questions. Figure out what you really need to know, then discover the answers together with the client. This is normal in many other fields, but for whatever reason that reality gets skewed in the design world.

A typical client coming to you and proceeding to tell you exactly what they want their design project to look like would be like an everyman telling a surgeon exactly how they would like their liver transplant done. It doesn’t work that way. In the same way that people go to doctors for professional surgery backed by years of schooling, mentoring, training, and experience to help them solve a difficult problem that is beyond their ability, so should people entrust designers. It would be absurd for you to go to a friend’s step-son for a critical surgery simply because he has a scalpal, yet it’s widely accepted to do just that when the same step-kid has a pirated copy of Photoshop.

Now hear me out, I’ll say again designers do not have all the answers, but designers do want you to have the best solution possible for your needs. However, designers can’t know all your needs unless we grill you with questions. Contrary to common practice, they shouldn’t just be questions for the client to tell what he or she wants, but more to show what tough question they are trying to answer. Often they’re trying to answer their own question then telling you to make their answer, when really they should present their question (problem) so the best answer can be discovered together.

Often the answer they bring is something like “We need a new website so people will buy more of our [insert product/service name here].” When really it would make more sense for them to come and say something like “We’d like to boost our sales/traffic/clients. Looking at our company how could we best do this in the world of [web/print/ads/billboards/e-mail/etc]?”

At this point the designer needs to be ready not to give answers, but to ask more questions. Great questions. Questions that help him discover what the company/client is all about. How they think, what they do, what they don’t do, what they’re good at, what they’re bad at, why they want more sales, and throughout this process attempt to have a better understanding of “the question/problem” than the client. Maybe they don’t need a direct mail coupon campaign, instead they need an e-mail campaign because their clients are not in the demographic that often gets mail (teens). Maybe they need well-designed billboard ads around town to raise their awareness rather than another 1″×2″ ad in the local PennySaver. Maybe their customer service stinks, and no matter how many new clients they happen to bring in, they’ll eventually lose every one of them. Maybe they don’t even need a website redesign, they just need more memorable branding. There has to be strategy, there are no quick fixes.

However, none of these [more appropriate] solutions would ever be uncovered without the asking of the right questions, extra questions, maybe even too many questions. This will save you innumerable hours of redesign, scrapped projects, and frustration when you seek to know as much as possible about where you’re going before you even push a single pixel.

Go above and beyond. Clarity is not easy. It’s not your client’s job to bring all the answers, that’s a part of why they’re bringing in a creative designer. Make them glad they did.

Learn who you are working for, with, and alongside of to unearth not just another good solution, but a great, clear, and concise solution that meets and succeeds their actual need. Directional clarity is often unearthed by first asking great questions rather than trying to just provide an answer.

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Let’s talk about Shampoo & Conditioner.

Is it just me or does everyone else grab the conditioner bottle first by accident 99.99% of the time? Could they not design these bottles even the slightest bit different? Writing shampoo or conditioner in 3pt script font does not constitute a variation I can decipher while I am in the steamy, dimly lit privacy of my shower environment.

I have a feeling the people at SoapyHead Industries are sitting in their big gushy office chairs laughing at all of us trying to use their products while they take breaks from counting their stacks of money. Do these people do usage testing on this stuff?

First of all, the bottles have no edges, so it’s akin to trying to grasp an ever-changing, soaking wet, formless bucking-bronco like amoeba that is gravitionally drawn not just to the center of the Earth, but to the earth just below my toes. Secondly, since presumably you are in the shower attempting to cleanse your filthy self, your hands are wet and you can’t get enough friction to open the dried-soap encrusted cap from your semi-successful shower from the day (week?) before. As you struggle to liberate the suds-inducing liquid from behind it’s now steel-welded, molecularly fused seal, you start to question your own ability to overcome the simple problems life has before you. No one yearns to scuffle with an inanimate object like this while in an already naked and vulnerable state.

It causes you start asking yourself if having clean hair is really that important, and you begin to think maybe you can get by with just using body wash in your hair again like that time your luggage went missing on your last trip to Phoenix. You begin to question the very definition of clean. “Well, clean is relative, I mean what is clean really. I didn’t think my hair was even that dirty.”

Do you see what you put us through product designers (or lack thereof) of shampoo and conditioner? Help us out, please. I beg you. You win, now can you please help us not feel like dummies each time we interact with your products?

End rant.

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I wish I could do that. I wish I had the time for that. If I had more time, I would love to chase me dreams. If I didn’t have to work all the time, I could really get something done. If I just had more time in the day I could do that. I would love to do that, but just everything else is in the way. Blah blah.

Shutup.

I hate to be harsh, but let’s be real; no one has enough time. For many of us a time the easiest scapegoat to the question of why we don’t do something. So because I’m OCD and cannot help myself, I did the math:

That’s 72. Seven. Two. We have seventy-two hours to do whatever want. Anything. Most people choose to eat, drink, be merry, watch television, “relax”, or some other meaningless entity with the majority of that time. Yet those same people decide they don’t have enough time to do what they love. Now, I realize that many of you have families, that you feel you don’t get enough time with, often spending time with children is very important, but it’s still not an “excuse”, it should be a priority.

It’s become increasingly difficult for us to really buckle down and do something that matters with the time we have because our attention has become very valuable. And because our attention is valuable, there is an ever flowing river of things that desire to have your attention, and often we’re such suckers, we give it to them. Advertisers realize how valuable our attention is, which is why they saturate us with commercials between the best parts of our favorite shows. Facebook doesn’t take your money, but it isn’t free. Fantasy Football exists only to subject people to more advertising while people aren’t watching real football. It’s why we endure 10 seconds of a lame add before a youtube video with a ton of hits.

Nothing is free. Sure there are things that don’t cost us any money, but in a lot of ways our attention is more valuable than money. Apps can be free but “add supported” by the selling of your attention. Broadcast television is free, because they sell your attention to advertisers. We’ve become so immune to it that we almost don’t realize it.

The Internet hasn’t helped, because it’s given us an infinite amount of ways to distract ourselves from what we desire to be doing. In fact, as much as I hate to admit it, you reading this right now is probably distracting you from doing what you wish you were doing (sorry about that). However, with incredible tools like the Internet comes a new responsibility and discipline to stay focused. Many are not aware of how they are wasting their lives doing nothing, but those few who see how much of their 72 hours are being stolen from them are quite aware.

When you come to the realization that everything (literally everything) wants to keep you from doing what really matters, you have an amazing opportunity to learn something about yourself. Take a step back and learn what you actually want to be doing and ask yourself why you aren’t (or haven’t been) doing it. Learn what distracts you most, avoid it. Then work your way backwards from there. A disciplined life is invaluable to those who have a passion inside. But passion is only a potential unless it is acted upon.

What are you doing with your 4,320 minutes that are yours each week? Now ask yourself what you could, should, or want to be doing? It’s not work if it’s your passion, it’s just the means to a goal, and that’s the best use of time that there is. Fight the resistance, if you don’t it always wins.

Do something you love. Do something that matters. Our time is finite, make the time you have count and give it a purpose.

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We as creatives love to let our minds run wild, let our minds explore what already is and imagine what it could be. Imagine how it could be better. We try our hardest to see what the outcome of some idea is going to be. We try so hard to defy reality and see the future. We try to widdle away all the ideas we shouldn’t focus on, get to the one idea we should chase down with reckless abandon, we make a few iterations to give us a next-level-glimpse at what is to come, and then we go for it. This is where the true fun of creative work begins.

At this point we have focus, we have a goal, we have an end in mind and it’s breathe-takingly going to blow the minds of all who find the privelege of being in it’s presence and proximity. Or is it? We press on, reassuring ourselves “if I add this, or that, or these that it will really be getting close to finished.”

Or is it?

How do we know when something is done? How do we know that we know that we know it will have the impact we hoped, foresaw, and dreamed that it would. We told our leadership it would accomplish bullet points 1—7 of our goals, but will it? How can we find any form of confidence in our sea of unknowns, educated gueses, hopes, dreams, and in whether we want to admit it or not, attempts at greatness? Can we ever really know?

In short, we’ve all had that project we thought was amazing that was actually a flop, yet we’ve also had a project we thought was going to be a sure flop turn out amazing. But what made them different? What set them apart from one another? What made the success a true success and what made the flop a definitive and disaterous flop?

I feel like these are questions I am constantly toiling with. How do I know if this really is the right direction? How do I know if this is going to be enough effort? Ultimately, when is a project done? When does it have enough? When is minimalism honestly just not enough, but when is something just too much?

Knowing when something is done is tough. People will say sweeping quotes like:

A project is not done when there is nothing more to add, but nothing more you can take away.

While that sounds awesome, that doesn’t tell me when my color palate is finished, it doesn’t tell me if my texture matches the genre, time period, or style. It doesn’t tell me when it’s going to meet the expectations of my leadership even though I may like it as it is. It may be a really rousing quote when set in white Trajan text on a black background on the wall of your art appreciation class, but for me it’s not a real world answer. So really, when do yo know it’s finished?

Sadly for you (and me) there isn’t a formulaic answer to this question. It will be different to every project. Finished is a term our society is eager to achieve by exerting the most minimal amount of effort possible, no matter what the stakes. We grow up our whole lives learning how to haphaserdly save a buck or minute here and there only to spend that money and time on something we don’t need while spending that precious time so wisely on Twitter and Facebook. Is this our goal in life? Cut corners on what matters to have time and money for things that don’t matter?

To really know when something is truly finished, you have to know you’ve given it the right amount of time to really explore what else is possisble, so that you can know you should rule it out. You learn to trust your gut, or someone’s gut. Maybe it’s just always knowing there could be more, but this will have to do for now because it’s the very best I can give with the constraints I have.

For me, I think one of the best indicators I can have is to look back at a project and know that I gave my all to the time, resources, people, and knowledge that I had at that time. Yet I always hope that years later I can look back at anything I’ve done and known how I could have done it better. That distaste for my own work shows me that I’m always learning to be discontent with where I am, knowing it could be better.

This is (whether we like it or not) the creative process.

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Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves all at the same time. ~ Thomas Merton

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People like Eric Spiekermann have played a huge part in what this [type] design industry is today. Interviewer Elliot Jay Stocks asked great questions which really surfaced Spiekermann’s unquenchable passion for progress, innovation, and critical creative decision making, which is something we can all benefit from. It gets me excited to hear the zeal in his voice about older mediums being brought back to life with a fresh perspective and into new mediums of communication.

Embracing constraints is necessary in our industry to affirm for us what we don’t need to be doing. Even in the simple things of type size or paper dimensions, these things help guide you to your solution. They eliminate the unnecessary options. Yet everyday it seems designers fret over feeling limited in their projects, or constrained in their options, but this is where true creativity surfaces. Amidst the limitations, we cannot just do, but we have to think creatively.

When constraints are acknowledged and embraced, true creativity can begin.

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"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. ~ Albert Einstein

I feel I can identify with this quite well. I’m no Einstein, but I think he’s on to something here. I rarely feel talented, but am definitely always searching for it.

Creativity isn’t a talent, it’s a lifestyle.

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