Last night I had the opportunity to go to our AIGA event in Salt Lake City. Speaking at the event was Joel Templin and Gaby Brink of Templin Brink Design (T.B. D.) They opened their doors in 1998, and since then, Templin Brink Design has created highly original and effective branding, packaging, corporate identity and advertising campaigns for top global marketers like American Eagle Outfitters, Apple Computer, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Dockers / Levi's, Janus Capital Group, Lucent Technologies, Oracle, Target Stores, and Williams-Sonoma.
I took some notes on some of the things they talk about, so here is a quick overview.
For a lot of there design they encourage their designers to look at old packaging to get inspiration. Mostly packages with old labels because of the great typography they use.
One company the designed a brand for was Song Airlines, unfortunately, the campaign never was used. At first Song Airlines wanted them to create a campaign to draw the right kind of employees to the company, so T.B. D. designed a poster campaign to do that. They used the emergency guides that airlines had to create a unique, hip look. After showing them to Song, they loved the look and feel and wanted them to create a logo. That is where T.B. D. took it to the extreme and created a whole brand. There approach was to create it from a passengers perspective. It was interesting to see there process of design and they filled there whole office with nothing but airline stuff. This whole brand campaign was the part that never was used.
They also talked about letting loose and doing something that doesn't matter. Joel had the desire to create something using paper and scissors. It had nothing to do with any projects, he just wanted to do it. He created a few items that ended up on some posters, but it was more to feel a creative desire.
Well, as there next client Target came along, the paper and scissor idea came out once again. They ended up doing some concepts with cut outs, which turned into 3d models that were used on the Target campaign.
On the same lines, they used a screen printer to create their moving announcement and agreed to promote the screen printer as well. What the came up with was some interesting decorative elements that they printed on the cards. Those same elements came into play when creating the Archer Farms brand for Target.
They stressed the point that you need to leave room to play around because that can increase your creativity on your next project.
When ask the question "What makes a good client?", Joel and Gaby responded will someone who trusts you and who collaborates with you and listens. But then stated, clients know there product the best so designers need to do an equal amount of listening.
Also, when ask "What do you do to get unstuck?", they responded quickly, "We don't get stuck". They elaborated a little more by stating they look at all visual items, they collect materials that relate to get inspiration. Don't start by sitting in front of a computer, get out in the environment and get inspiration there. Do stuff you know is wrong to get it out of your system. It's okay to be wrong sometimes.
As the questions went on one thing they said that stood out to me was, "Don't show anything you don't want to sell, because the client will always pick that one." When they pitch there ideas, it could be 2 ideas or 10, it all depends on what they are willing to sell.
Overall, it was a very good evening. I was excited to listen to them speak because I have followed their work for years (it's hard not to see it if you look at any design magazine). The evening was a big success, so thank you to Joel and Gaby and the AIGA Salt Lake Chapter.

Labels: AIGA, designer, T.B. D., Templin Brink Design