1. GETTING
INTO
DIGITAL DESIGN
ANDY CHAN Jonathan Hill Monica Giunchi

2. Digital design
is a field of graphics which encapsulates
web design user interfaces apps and everything
screen based...

3. It is an evolving industry,
it is always changing and exploring the uses of
new devices and technology.

4. Professional Contacts
We contacted freelancers,
small and large studios asking
a short list of questions.

5. We asked:
•What brought you into Digital design?
•Was it always your intention or did you plan to work on something else?
•What characteristics do you think make a great Digital designer?
•What where the first things you learnt when you started out?
•What has changed in your practice in the past few years and what do you
expect to be working on in the future?
•Is there anything else you think I should know?

6. BRISTOL
Kester Limb, Grow
Eugene Getov, Grow
Richard Windsor, Beef
Remco Merbis, Pixillion Digital
Dan Hirons, Activation Digital
Russell Kirkland, Mash and Gravy
Robb Green, SiftGroups
Tom Brooks, Olospo
Sam Clarke, Toasted Digital David Gillett, Freelance, Bath
Aurelien Dallaserra, Eleanor Rudge, Cogapp, Brighton
StreamPublishing Sam Bell, Thought Collective,
Mills, Ustwo Belfast
Ken Chow, Freelance Yuchen Zhang, Red Antler,
New York
London GLoBal

7. Kester Limb
GROW
BRistol
Kester Limb is a front end web developer and designer residing in Bristol, UK.
He specialises in the field of standards based web development and interaction design.
Currently working as part of the Grow cooperative based in Bristol,
a collection of freelance web designers.

8. Kester Limb
Online Portfolio

9. Kester Limb
Website for
Cornwall Design
Season 2011

10. David Gillett has been designing websites, games, applications, virals and
educational resources for over eleven years and has a passion for interactive design.
After working for Complete Control for seven years,
David is now a freelancer based in Bath
DAVID GiLLetT
Freelance
Bath

11. David Gillett
Cookies That
Care campaign
microsite designed
for McVitie’s.
Website, logo and
user experience
designed for
Myeloma Acedemy.

12. Ustwo is a digital design studio that delivers pioneering user experiences as digital
partner to the world’s leading brands including Sony, Sony Ericsson, Intel, H&M, BBC,
Turner and J.P.Morgan. They are boldly independent, serving a global client base from
their studios in London and Malmö, Sweden (New York coming soon).
Mills
USTWO
London

13. Mills - MouthOff App

14. Mills - Whale Trail App

15. Getting Started
5 points to become a
digital designer.

16. 5 Points:
1. How to get into work
2. What makes a great Digital designer?
3. Usability and structure
4. Backgrounds of the Designers
5. The new frontiers of Digital design

17. How to get into work
VISUAL IDENTITY
“ If you want to build your own business
it’s great to have a visual style
that people identify with you. ”
KESTER LIMB

18. How to get into work
IDeas
“ For me, ideas are much more important
than technique. Ideas are everything,
execution can be taught. ”
ROBB GREEN

19. How to get into work
Work Experience
“ Get into professional practice early.
As early as possible.
Take on freelance work.
Design for the real world. ”
RICHARD WINDSOR

20. 5 points:
1. How to get into work
2. What makes a great Digital designer?
3. Usability and structure
4. Backgrounds of the Designers
5. The new frontiers of Digital design

21. What makes a great digital designer?
{ ADAPTATION }
“ I really believe if you train yourself to
adapt as a core skill, you will get far. ”
SAM CLARKE

22. What makes a great digital designer?
{ ADAPTATION }
One of the most important characteristics for
a digital designer is the ability to adapt to the
ever changing landscape of graphic design
and learn new skills to enable you to work on
new technologies.

23. What makes a great digital designer?
{ }
BE interested
{ }
Embrace the full flexibility
of varying outputs
(monitor sizes, mobile, tablet)

24. What makes a great digital designer?
{ATTENTION TO DETAIL }
“ Great design is in the details, especially on the
web - a really obsessive attention to detail can
make all the difference especially
when you are working in pixels. ”
KESTER LIMB

25. What makes a great digital designer?
{ ATTENTION TO DETAIL }
“ When you’re closely working alongside
developers you need to be able to present organ-
ised coherent designs. ”
RICHARD WINDSOR

26. 5 points:
1. How to get into work
2. What makes a great Digital designer?
3. Usability and structure
4. Backgrounds of the Designers
5. The new frontiers of Digital design

27. Usability and structure
“ The ability to create beautiful
and intuitive design - not too complicated
so that the user can find things easily.”
EUGENE GETOV

28. Usability and structure
Usability and the utility, not the visual design,
determine the success or failure of a website.
Since the visitor of the page is the only person who
clicks the mouse and therefore decides everything.
Smashing Magazine, Usabilty and User Experience

29. Usability and structure
“ Make sure you never piss the user off. ”
RUSSEL KIRKLAND
“ Thinking constantly how users would respond to
a function, a graphic shape or simply a text.”
YUCHEN ZHANG

30. 5 points:
1. How to get into work
2. What makes a great Digital designer?
3. Usability and structure
4. Backgrounds of the Designers
5. The new frontiers of Digital design

31. Background of
the designers “It just felt like a natural
progression after certain
Contacts came from different
backgrounds - graphics, opportunites presented
illustration, animation, music, themselves, Bristol is a
computer science, film editing. very digital city after all.”
The main reason for moving to
RICHARD WINDSOR
digital design was due to the
new opportunities opening up
in this field.

32. Background of
the designers “It just felt like a natural
progression after certain
Contacts came from different
backgrounds - graphics, opportunites presented
illustration, animation, music, themselves, Bristol is a
computer science, film editing. very digital city after all.”
The main reason for moving to
RICHARD WINDSOR
digital design was due to the
new opportunities opening up
in this field.

33. Background of
the designers “It just felt like a natural
progression after certain
Contacts came from different
backgrounds - graphics, opportunites presented
illustration, animation, music, themselves, Bristol is a
computer science, film editing. very digital city after all.”
The main reason for moving to
RICHARD WINDSOR
digital design was due to the
new opportunities opening up
in this field.

34. 5 points:
1. How to get into work
2. What makes a great digital designer?
3. Usability and structure
4. Backgrounds of the Designers
5. The new frontiers of Digital design

35. The
Change
“ Trends change – a big big change in the past few years in
my field is the moving away from Adobe Flash
to creating work solely in HTML.
A very welcome evolution is the more mainstream availabil-
ity of CSS3 fonts, enabling us to use rich fonts in our designs
while still designing accessible websites.”
SAM CLARKE

36. The
Change
“ There is a much stronger focus on user
experience design than ever, and this will
become even more important in the future.”
REMCO MERBIS

37. The
Change
“ Touch interfaces are a new challenge,
and mobile has finally taken off
after years of false starts.”
RUSSELL KIRKLAND
The one word that I hear more than any other at the moment is mobile. Mobile websites, mobile devices, mobile
apps: the list seems to go on and on. In fact, a large swell of opinion says that the future Web is mobile.”
James Gardner, Designing for the Future Web, Smashing Magazine.

38. “ What HAS changed for me is that
it is ALL about digital.
There is no other place
a designer should be. ”
MILLS

39. questions? And thank you for your time!
Read more about our research:
http://digitalanguage.tumblr.com/
Review our presentation on:
http:// slideshare.net/uwe_digital/getting-into-digital-design
ANDY CHAN Jonathan Hill Monica Giunchi