Margo Chase Report

The Margo Chase speech focused on the topic of "surviving design".

Her first point was "adapt or fail". This was a topic I very much agreed with. If you are not able to adapt with changing tides or changing technologies, then you're bound to fall behind. Keeping up with technology and always being a step above your competition is simply part of the role of being a designer. It's something that gets harder every day as technology is improving at an exponential rate, but if your competitor learns the fancy new tools faster than you, then they've got an advantage. At the same time, there is basic knowledge of design fundamentals that will always be relevant no matter what the media form is.

Her second topic of avoiding the trend trap was quite amusing but probably important to keep note of. If you end up with a massive portfolio consisting of one style, nobody will think you're capable of anything else. Being able to tackle a variety of situations is something a designer has to be able to do.

The third topic of following your own path and taking risks seems to be very true. First of all, if you don't like the subject matter that you're working on, then you're just going to be miserable for the rest of your working career. And if you don't take those extra steps to take on a big risk, then someone else will step up and take it before you.

"Feed their heads" is a step that is probably underrated as far as it's importance to design. Working with the clients at the deepest and most intricate levels of information allow the final design to be all the more accurate to the desires of the client. It's vitally important to understand who you're specifically advertising to or you'll simply make a worthless campaign.

And finally, "Design for Change". You do have to design almost entirely with the future in mind. Your designs have to stand the test of time. They cannot rely on just following a trend or they will become quickly irrelevant and need to be redesigned in a matter of years. It is also important to never stop learning. Design simply doesn't work inside of a bubble. You need to take chances and do things you might not be comfortable with in order to come out with more knowledge of the field in the end.