Are you a designer?  A London startup? Or a business who cares about creating great products and a loved brand?

If you’re any of the above, then you’ll understand that great design is a hard thing to master, and great designers are an essential ingredient in the success of products and businesses, regardless of what industry you’re in.

Here at Eventbrite, we’re strong believers in the power of design, and work hard to create a culture of design across the business.

To help understand how this process works and celebrate the role of designers in business, we held an event this morning in Shoreditch, organised and compered by our Community Manager, Katie McPhee.  We invited three esteemed designers to talk about their experiences of building a design culture in their company:

• Gideon Bullock, Head of Design, Songkick (@gideonb)
• Gearoid O’Rourke, Product lead, Hassle; Organiser, Design & Banter (@gearoidorourke)
• Erik Gomez, Communication Designer, Eventbrite (@KristopherErik)

Here’s what they had to say, along with a few great additions from the wonderful audience!

What makes for a successful design culture?

Gideon: At Songkick, we’re really focused on two things that help foster a successful design culture.  The first is building a ‘culture of enquirey’, where we try to learn and grow everyday.  We’re encouraged to experiment and iterate quickly, based on measuring what works and what doesn’t.

The second is encapsulated in our ‘Principles’ as ‘JFDI’ which basically means ‘do stuff, don’t talk about it’.

Erik: At Eventbrite, we have a similar outlook to one Gideon mentioned.  Across the whole company, including design, we have a big focus on creating and rewarding a #makeithappen attitude.  If you see something that needs changing or can be improved, then you should just take initiative and try to improve it!

For a designer, that’s a really powerful message, as you know you can have an impact at every level of the business.

Gearoid: For me, it’s really important the companies relate the importance of a designer’s work to their business goals.  If they can see their work is having a meaningful impact on the growth of the business or success of a product, that’s extremely satisfying and motivating.

So keep them linked up with the broader picture, tell them why their job matters and you’ll start building a successful design culture.

How can designers demonstrate their impact on a business?

Gearoid: As a designer, I’m really cognizant that it’s easy for people to focus only on the finished product, and forget about the hours of thinking, iterations and work that went into it beforehand.  So my advice is to be more transparent about your work and the design process.

Try to share early drafts, explain your thought process (and involve others) and generally make it clear just how much work goes into the end result.

Gideon:  It’s important for the design team to be involved with product meetings and reviews where the business and product teams discuss successes and key metrics.  By being involved in those conversations it’s much easier for designers to be acknowledged as part of the wider success of a product and contribute to discussions about strategy and business impact.

Erik: This is actually baked into the process at Eventbrite.  When teams need design work doing, part of the process usually involves them justifying the impact of our work on their products or commercial strategy.  This makes it really clear how our input will impact the business and makes it easier to understand the context of our work.

What is the optimal way of structuring the design process?

Erik: As I was mentioning, it’s important to have processes in place when you get to a certain size.  A free-for-all just doesn’t work after a certain point.

For my role, which is central (i.e. not working on a specific product), it’s also important to engage stakeholders from across the business and connect the dots.

(From the audience) Lauren Moon, Senior Product Designer, Eventbrite: Just adding to Erik’s point, Eventbrite has been growing really fast.  Since I joined 2.5 years ago we’ve gone from around 100 people to over 350.

Dealing with that kind of growth has meant teams need to specialise and break up into smaller units.  Design is represented in each major product team to ensure their voice is heard, and it allows the designers to focus on what they really care about most.

Sitting in small inter-disciplinary teams also means you’re right next to the people you need to get feedback from, and this helps things get done faster as the communication flow more open.

Gideon: We’ve had a similar experience at Songkick, where smaller, tightly-knit teams that include design help keep energy levels high and encourages creativity.

Gearoid:   I’ve got three thoughts on this.

The first is how hard integrating design with lean start-up methodology can be.  Matching the work of designers with product development sprints is a challenge I’ve seen in a number of start-ups, and I don’t have the answer necessarily.

However, my second point is to agree with the other guys here.  Breaking into smaller teams definitely helps create unity and ownership, because there’s less handoff to ‘that department over there’.

Third, I’ve got a very specific piece of advice for helping design teams work effectively with other teams.  It’s the 80%-20% rule of feedback.  Basically, if you’ve finished 20% of the work, then you’re just getting started, and should be flexible enough to receive 80% feedback, which may involve some pretty big changes.

However, if you’re 80% finished on a project, feedback should be around 20% – i.e. smaller, incremental tweaks and changes.  Wading in with drastic changes in direction is a sure fire way of derailing the process and frustrating the design team.

(From the audience) Utku Can, former Creative Director at Mint Digital (@utku): At Mint Digital, we original set out to create a really strong and defined ‘design culture’ which we could own completely.

However, we found in the last few years that a much better and more productive approach was separating into smaller, multi-disciplinary product teams.  It improved communication, stopped any sense of there being different cultures (say between design and tech), and helped us think more creatively too.

Ultimately, making products isn’t about design or engineering – it’s about smart people coming together to work on interesting problems.

How important is the work environment to fostering creativity?

Gideon: We think it has a place, certainly.  We feel that smaller, intimate spaces help build camaraderie, energy and creativity.  Obviously it’s also important to be able to get away from that sometimes too, so we have plenty of break out space too.

For anyone interested in the process of building creative spaces, they should check out the book “Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration.”

Gearoid:  Innovative spaces can have an impact on energy and the creative process, but there’s no silver bullet to building the perfect space.  It’s probably better to focus on finding the right people.

Lauren: We think the work environment is a pretty important factor in keeping people happy and productive.  We’re actually working on building out a dedicated ‘design utopia’ full of cool tools and workspaces, but I also agree that the most important aspect of successful design is the people, not the place.

Utku: My experience has been that you can do a lot of fun and creative things with space, but it’s hard to predict exactly how it’s going to impact on a team, or how individuals will respond to it.  Probably the main advantage of offering a cool workspace is attracting talent, rather than it being the magic juice for creativity.

(From the audience) ‘femi, Instructor at General Assembly London (@designjuju):  In my experience, people keep getting this all wrong.  There’s too much focus on packing rooms full of stuff and distractions to try and stimulate creativity.

I believe ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ and by stripping away excessive resources, distractions and workplace ephemera you will help the creative process more.  If you work in a blank, empty room, there’s a lot more chance to bring your own ideas and emotional state to the design process.

What are you most excited about?

Gideon: There’s a lot to be excited about at Songkick as we keep growing strongly, so we’re able to expand and that means finding new talented people to work with on the team.  The product also keeps evolving, and so it’s great to be a part of this journey in bringing a product to millions of people that helps them find awesome live music.

Gearoid: I’m excited to start building out a team here as the Product Lead at Hassle.  It’s a great opportunity to help drive the growth of an awesome UK startup.

Erik: I’m excited by a couple of things.  One project I’m working on is the way we present our brand as we continue to expand our reach as an audience marketplace for event discovery, which means taking a deep look at the emotional impact of design on our brand.  It’s a big task, but it should have a big impact in the long-term.

The second thing I’m excited about is helping recruit for the International Design Lead position.  It’s such a great opportunity for a talented designer to take ownership of building out a team in London and really leading the design culture for our fast growing UK and European business.

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Any designers that are interested in the role of International Design Lead at Eventbrite should check out the job specs and apply here!

If you’re not sure about whether working in a startup is the right thing for you, then take a look at this related post here: “Should designers work for startups?”

Finally, if you have any ideas or thoughts about building a great design culture, we’d love to hear about them in the comments below!