Beginning in 1980 through the present, Jamie Skiles of Phoenix Design has adapted and changed with the demands of the business. He helped small businesses grow and big companies stay on top. Read on to learn about what skills designers need to stay relevant and deliver successful branding for their clients in the future.
How did you get your start in this business?
I am one of those fortunate people that is getting to do what I always wanted to do. My earliest memories are of drawing, and I grew up in a home where my mother was always very supportive of my artistic efforts. I remember getting out of college and moving to Austin to look for a job…and getting one. It had to be something like 1980, working in ad agencies, which at the time, was a little like a cross between joining the circus and Almost Famous, very rock & roll. As I recall, it was all terribly fun; we got away with murder, certainly by today’s standards, and first and foremost, I learned the value of a great idea.
How long have you been in this business?
So, as noted above, it had to be 1980. Austin was amazing then: Stevie Ray Vaughn, Fabulous Thunderbirds, and Antone’s every weekend. I eventually made the decision after a couple of years to move to New York. If you were going to be the best, you had to move to New York, right? I traded in my love of Texas Blues Rock for Punk and New Wave, and I learned about sacrificing for one’s ideas, one’s ideals, and the pursuit of a career in art…when I was introduced to city, state, and federal taxes, and what it meant to live on the Lower East Side in the early ’80s. But in my experience, New York City has always been a great test for one’s humanity. All ante’s are upped, all the time. So if you possess the ambition, strength of character, and physical, mental, and emotional stamina to live in New York, as well as achieve some modicum of success in your chosen field, in my case, visual arts, and you’re still what your friends can refer to as a good person, then indeed, I think you’ve earned some bragging rights.
What have been some of the biggest changes that you have witnessed during that time? How have they impacted the work you do?
Hmmmm. Well, from a conceptual view point, there was a time when a lot of us got into this business because we yearned for the opportunity to be clever, visually, verbally, hopefully both. And that speaks to the way in which you learn to manifest your creative vision. If you have a desire to do increasingly better and better work, you have to either have the good fortune to work for clients that “Get it,” see the value in what you do and support well thought out and well crafted work, and/or, enforce your own sense of discipline and personal ethics to create work that is brilliant, sometimes, in spite of your client, not always because of them. But, to be fair, the part about being brilliant is really on your side of the scale when a client hires you to work for them. So, there’s that.
I say all that as context to perhaps today, the majority of advertising, and usually what we produce is in service of an act of commerce. So call it branding, advertising, online, visual communication, it’s usually done to sell something. Anyway, the majority of today’s advertising may be said to be more direct, or simpler in it’s thesis than in the past. To me, that speaks to our culture’s increased emphasis on the instant part of instant gratification, the psychological implications of social media, specifically its impact on the human brain. If your audience’s actual brain chemistry has changed, then by definition, it would follow that successful creative work must also change to accomplish the same goal on behalf of the client. So that’s something to consider when you’re working away on your next deadline.
I also often think advertising has more in common with stand up comedy than, perhaps, any other form of fiction. There’s a set up, a delivery, and the pay off of a promise, or the punch line…all done in the character of the brand. If that’s true, what happens to our culture if we lose the ability to recognize humor? Something else to think about as you work away on your deadlines.
As far as impacting my own work personally: Everyday communication increasingly becomes the fulcrum on which the world pivots; being aware of new events in our news, science and popular culture, these days that often means within the hour. [It] allows you to anticipate changes and opportunities that may impact your client’s marketing efforts. So think it through, and make yourself useful.
What percent of your work is for web and what percent is for print? Or is it hard to distinguish?
So, we create a lot of branding programs for clients that then get further distribution to vendors, licensees, and end users, such as a client’s local agency or promotional group, and as such, the logo marks and visual assets of any branding program we deliver must be conversant in both mediums, as well as screen printing and embroidery. I don’t think anyone doubts the death of print at this point, albeit posters, or other cultural environment printing, like packaging, or some genres of book publishing are making a niche comeback, not unlike vinyl in the consumer music area and probably for the same cultural rationale. If we create a brand for a sports team or event, it’s going to be used in order of scale: on the side of a building, on buses and vehicles, on uniforms through silk screen printing and embroidery, on merchandise for consumers, and everything digital, online promotions, animation, web sites, screen savers, and email communications.
Have you integrated any motion/animation projects into your work flow? Are you clients asking for motion solutions?
We always offer and promote animation to our clients. Sometimes that means working with the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on their game day video boards in the stadium or score board animation for team branding. Other times we’ll produce videos for brand launches. I think animation is still an education point for a lot of clients. They need to see how it can truly impact their bottom line for the better.
Do you have any predictions for the future of the business? Where do you think it is going, and what are the skills designers need to stay competitive? Where do you see your business in five years? Or even two?
I believe Adobe and some drag and drop web apps will pursue the consumer market to a greater degree, making it more imperative for professional visual artists to convey the qualitative difference and therefore substantiate the value of what they do to their audience to maintain their revenue streams. On a positive note, I think we will see the reach of the internet transcend geographic borders. Meaning up until now, even though we obviously have a world wide web, commercial art business tends to stay within borders as it were, but if the current trend of renegotiating country-to-country trade deals continues, we may see opportunities for commercial art markets open up beyond US borders in a bigger way than we have seen to date. I think skill sets that will help visual artists stay competitive in the coming years will all be communication based. You must maintain regular mailings with your database, post regularly with your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram followers. Keep your existing clients and potential new clients aware of new work you’re doing. In other words, communicate. At Phoenix Design Works, we are making inroads into a number of new areas of business, and I would expect that in five years we will have consolidated our business in those areas and be exploring new areas of branding opportunities opening up five years from now.
What is the most interesting job you’ve worked on recently? Is there a project that you are particularly proud of and why?
So to me, part of being good at what you do is making every job you do the most interesting job you’ve ever done. It’s an aspect of having a good work ethic, and it’s part of making your client believe that their business is important to you, and it should be. Having said that, to this day, I believe I have the best job in the world, and we are very fortunate to get to do what we get to do for a career. When we get to do big profile projects like working for Fireball, Major League Baseball, The US Open, or one of the bowl games we work for: the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, the Cheribundi Boca Raton Bowl, or the Valero Alamo Bowl, I get a lot of satisfaction from working with them to build a brand that hundreds of thousands fans interact with and enjoy [the work that you’ve created]. Conversely, when we work with clients whose branding programs are on a smaller scale, I get a lot of satisfaction from working with them, because what we do for them is even more critical to their needs. In both cases it’s essential that you perform for them and honor the trust they have placed in you, and in both cases it makes us very happy to be of service and make others happy with the work we do. If you can create successful branding programs for your clients, make people happy through the work you do, that and puppies are about as good as it gets!
