HOW TO COLLABORATE WITH AND BE INSPIRED BY CORPORATE EVENT GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

You can read the transcript below or listen to Episode 16 on the episode page, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

EPISODE 16 TRANSCRIPT

JEREMY: Alright, so I am here with one of Proscenium’s longtime art directors, Christian Bayonet. Christian, you and I work together technically all the time, but we're often on so many different projects than each other. I don't get to actually talk to you that often, so this is a treat for me, and I wanted to say thank you for taking time away from creating and designing to talk to us today.

CHRISTIAN: Yeah, thanks for having me.

JEREMY: I don't know if we're unique, but one of the things that differentiates us is that we have a pretty robust in-house design studio. How many designers have we got?

CHRISTIAN: The design team is made up of about six designers now. We've grown, we've added a few people over the past couple of years, but we have someone leading the entire design team followed by two art directors. We have a senior graphic designer, a graphic designer, and a junior designer.

JEREMY: What is the difference between a graphic designer and an art director?

CHRISTIAN: An art director creates and helps guide the visual aesthetic of a product or a campaign. In our cases, a show. In many cases, they'll work collaboratively with the creative director who helps develop the overall conceptual idea behind a project and guide it to completion. Our director will lead the graphic designers and help ensure that a consistent visual aesthetic is carried through. Our director is still a designer, but they also take on the role of a leader.

JEREMY: In the case of a corporate event, I would imagine that a lot of that aesthetic is dictated by the brand, its guidelines, and personalities. As an art director, how do you learn that and immerse yourself in that? Then to what extent can you bring your own aesthetic that plays with their aesthetic?

CHRISTIAN: Each brand has its set of guidelines and brand rules that they have us follow and it follows their brand identity. It is very important that we follow that to help tell a brand’s story correctly and to help them lead their narrative in an accurate way. The challenge is, sometimes, how can we follow all those rules and stay true to that brand while still making it fun, exciting, and new.

It’s really just taking what I know as a designer, learning this new brand, and making it all work together, which can be a challenge at times. At times, some of these brands are new and you're just learning them for the first time. I think once you are able to figure that out with the help of a creative director, someone from the client side, or the brand side there will be a better understanding of that brand. Make sure you truly understand it because I think your design expertise can then naturally just come into the picture and fluidly work into the process.

JEREMY: Talk me through that process a little bit. You mentioned working with creative directors and with people who work for the brand. What are you looking for from them that will enable you to do the best work that you want to be able to do?

CHRISTIAN: Well, the first thing I think of is communication; good, open, and honest communication. This isn't just in the work environment. Transparency, honesty, and being direct can be very effective. Whether it is a client, someone on a senior level, or a creative director, I think if you can be direct with them, it's easier for that message to be received, for the process to keep moving, and to get what you need.

I also think that a good briefing and detailed feedback can go a long way and be very helpful to the process. Provide all the information that'll help the designer do their job. Give as many details as possible. It'll decrease the back and forth and get you closer to what you're looking for.

JEREMY: What would you say to someone who said they have no problem being honest, direct, and transparent? That's in my wheelhouse. I'm just not a very visual person. I don't feel like I speak a design language, so I don't know what to say to a designer. Visually that might help them. What advice would you give someone like that?

CHRISTIAN: I think it can be intimidating. Oftentimes, I've had clients give a disclaimer before talking to me and saying they don't know design lingo, forgive me if I get this wrong, or forgive me if you've already thought about this. It’s okay because not everyone has been trained to be a designer. That's not their expertise.

I think if you can just communicate what you're thinking, whether it be an emotion or a conceptual idea, we can work together and figure it out. It's really collaborative. I can't emphasize enough how important the whole collaboration part is to the process. It's going to take a lot of back and forth. It's going to take some understanding of what the process is for the designer, how the designer can put it together, and what they're thinking of it. For the designer, they need to understand what the client or the brand is really looking to do.

JEREMY: I think that's a really important point. As you said, people will come to you and say that they’re intimidated because I don't speak this language. I remember when I was directing musicals, I was intimidated by talking to musical directors. What I learned was they don't want you to tell them to change that note to an F sharp, to change the time meter here, and to play PMO instead of piano. That's their job. What they want is for you to be able to articulate what you're looking for and let them figure out, musically, how to make that happen.

I think with graphic design, it's very similar. You probably don't want someone to come to you with a Pantone color and say, “This is the color I want, and in Adobe Photoshop, I want you to click this particular effect to make it happen.”

If they had the skills to do that, then let them do that. You are here to bring your expertise to do that. I thought what you said was really great. What does the brand need? What are we looking for? What is this about?

Because you don't know, they can provide that part of the equation and you can provide the design side. That's a collaboration that I think you're talking about. Right?

CHRISTIAN: Absolutely right. It's collaboration. It’s a give and take as in most relationships. It has to be give and take. If you allow yourself to give that trust to the designer to do their portion of it, you'll be surprised that some of the great ideas that can come out of it.

JEREMY: Yeah, that's great. Now let's go back to the beginning of the process. I'm imagining an executive, CEO, CMO, or whomever it might be writing their speech or maybe they have a person who writes the speech for them. That's usually the first step, right? What do they want to say? They have their speech and are on stage in front of these gorgeous graphics, and I'm curious how that process works best for you.

Do you want them to be thinking about how they would love to put a graph here, a picture of a tiger here, or a really cool animation here would help? Would you just want them to read a script and you come or the creative director comes with some ideas?

CHRISTIAN: People need visuals. It helps tell your story and your visuals are what people remember, hold onto, and it makes the information much easier and quicker to process. It's not necessarily an executive's job to decide what those visuals are. It's certainly helpful if they can communicate that. It'll definitely make my job as an art director or a designer much easier, but again, I don't believe it's their job.

Now we can have those conversations on talking through their idea and figuring out what it actually means. That way, it'll be easier for me to do the job of putting these visuals together.

Thinking about it for a second, let’s say a presentation is heavy on words or maybe it's cluttered with numbers and images. It could be very overwhelming for someone to digest, but oftentimes, that is made up of a bunch of ideas that they're trying to get out. I think my job as the designer would be to understand their narrative. It's the collaboration that I was talking about understanding.

What needs to be happening to get to the point they're trying to get across? If you understand the story you're telling or the point that's trying to be made, what visuals need to be made at that point will be clear. I think on their level, being direct and decluttering when possible is super helpful.

I believe less is more, and the fewer words you have in a presentation, the easier it'll be to digest that.

JEREMY: That leads to where I wanted to go next, which was to ask you what you wanted more or less of from your collaborators. You just gave a great example where you said sometimes less is more. Sometimes people put too much visually, and you believe, which I agree with you on, is that less is more on a slide.

Are there any other things like that where you feel like, visually, people want to go here but maybe they should go there?

CHRISTIAN: One thing happens time and time again when a presentation is actually being designed prior to getting to a designer. That could easily feel dated with a dated PowerPoint stock template or corny fonts. I'm talking to you, Comic Sans.

[JEREMY LAUGHS]

JEREMY: I think Comic Sans can hear you.

CHRISTIAN: I think they got to have everyone look out and be open to new design trends. I think this is where trusting a designer really comes in handy. This leads me to a mistake I think is made sometimes. The mistake of not trusting their designers' expertise, their ideas, and their creative approach to certain ideas.

When it comes to a presentation design, I think some other things to avoid are being too wordy, decluttering when possible, designers going overboard with transitions, and some of those PowerPoint tricks so it isn’t too corny or dated. I think a lack of consistency is a mistake that is often made. Whether it's with the narrative or the visual aesthetic, it's very important to keep that at the top of mind and keep a consistent carry through along all those elements; have that presentation be the most form of itself.

JEREMY: Yeah, that's interesting. One of the challenges I would think with design is that you have these enormous screens, and the presenter is only six feet tall, five feet tall, or whatever. The focus is on the presenter, and so the designer is in charge of putting these beautiful images on this enormous canvas without pulling attention away from the speaker.

How do you do that?

CHRISTIAN: I think treating graphics, particularly when speakers are talking, as more of a backdrop and supplementary to what the speaker is trying to say is, oftentimes, the most effective way of using those screens while they're talking.

You don't want to distract or pull the audience away from the speaker, but if you can just enhance what they're trying to say, I think that's most effective. Use things like textures, something more atmospheric, or more of an environment. Those are some beautiful and very effective ways of helping tell the speaker's story and getting their point across.

JEREMY: That's a great point. I'm curious about your inspiration. You were talking about trusting your designer and where you are getting design ideas from.

CHRISTIAN: Where don't I get inspiration from? It's everywhere, really. Living here in New York City, I'm almost overstimulated with inspiration at times by just living my life and existing here in the streets. You see subway ads, museums, concerts, random pop-ups, furniture stores and I love furniture, shapes, and people's clothing. I like looking at the different silhouettes people make with their outfits.

It's funny, as much as I don't love crowds, it's almost quite nice passing through Times Square, particularly at nighttime with their screens and all the ads at their brightest at night. I get a lot of inspiration from those brand graphics and animations on such a large canvas. It is essentially what I do for my job, so that's one of the more direct channels of inspiration I can pull from.

JEREMY: I'm curious from a technology point of view, are there any innovations coming down the pike? It could be either something that you've played with recently that you've loved or something that you've just seen that you haven't tried yet.

CHRISTIAN: Recently, at this year's Grammys, there's this AI artist with LED graphics for the whole show, and they were visually stunning. He essentially used AI software to pull from this massive data set of over 300 million images of nature and create a super colorful, abstract, visually dynamic, and immersive graphic to set as the backdrop on the stage.

It was stunning, honestly, and I think with the increasing popularity of AI, it's going to continue to grow tremendously as an asset for design.

JEREMY: I agree with you. I think it's really interesting and exciting. What do you make of things like stable diffusion, mid-journey, and dolly? Do those things worry you or excite you?

BETHANY: This is behind the scenes Bethany breaking in with the fact check. The programs Jeremy mentioned are AI-powered software that creates original artwork and images from tagging images. It's pretty cool. We'll link to them in the show notes, and you can check for yourself.

CHRISTIAN: Yeah, they're very exciting and impressive tools. I'm not necessarily nervous about the idea of them though. I think, more than anything, I'm excited to see what they can do and how I as a designer can use it as an asset. I think making it my friend and taking it upon myself to learn how to use these tools will help me do my job tremendously, push the boundaries of what I can accomplish, and what we can use in our shows.

JEREMY: You and I have had the good fortune to have the opportunity to work on a couple of corporate events where employee talent was involved. I've always been so impressed with what you've brought to that process in terms of making those moments seem nothing like an open mic or a talent show and more like a full-out rock concert.

I would love it if you could just talk a little bit about your process or what design brings to a moment like this.

CHRISTIAN: These employee talent acts are such a great opportunity to take a time out and break free from the confines of the overall event theme or even a brain identity to just really cut loose, go crazy, and have fun. Having the opportunity to enhance performers' skillset or their performance on stage by using the set design as a canvas to make them feel like rock stars are usually the times when I have the most fun.

I think we can really go crazy at those points by pushing the boundaries and creating graphics that otherwise I wouldn't be able to really experiment with during the main show.

JEREMY: You’re brilliant at that in terms of the sets. Sometimes we just have one big screen, three big screens, or crazy screen configurations. The way you use all of those screens to maximum effect helps you feel it in the audience. It's really exciting.

I'd love to move on to our Lightning Round.

[AUDIBLE THUNDER]

This is three quick questions that we ask at the end of every episode. The first one is, who's your biggest get? A speaker, entertainer, or subject matter expert that you would either love to see at a live event or someone who you would love to coach.

CHRISTIAN: As a designer, I am more keen on seeing someone from the arts world or from more of a creative background. One creative I admire so much is actually Solange Knowles, Beyonce's younger sister. She just has such good taste, has her hands in so many realms of the art scene, and collaborates with so many awesome artists. She has beautiful set designs, beautiful music videos, and genius curated projects in the design.

JEREMY: What did you make of Pharrell's promotion with Louis Vuitton? He took over as creative director.

CHRISTIAN: Yeah. I love Pharrell Williams as an all-around creative. He does come from a music background, but him taking over as creative director for Louis Vuitton is the first time that an artist has taken on that responsibility.

The creative director right before him, Virgil Abloh, who was amazing, had an untimely passing a few years back. He did an amazing job with the brand and taking that brand in a new direction, but very excited to see what Pharrell does. He's already a very inspirational figure that I look up to, and I’m very intrigued to see him continue to push boundaries at such a high level with clothing and lifestyle, can't wait to see it.

JEREMY: Second question, what is one thing you wish presenters did more of or less of?

CHRISTIAN: They could go off script. It spices things up a little bit. Go rogue and see what happens.

[JEREMY LAUGHS]

JEREMY: Wow. Now as the designer, I'm curious to hear you say that because sometimes the queuing is tight to the script. If they go off script, it might mess up some of those brilliant transitions you've put in.

CHRISTIAN: Yeah, things are more fun when you're going a little rogue, I think. We'll see what happens. It'll be fun.

[JEREMY LAUGHS]

JEREMY: Last question, what is something, could be a book, a movie, a song, whatever you like, that was a big influence on you and particularly, if possible, influenced your professional career?

CHRISTIAN: This is more of a current influence for me, but there's this band that I love by the name Khruangbin. I had the opportunity to catch three of their shows last year. I love them that much, particularly their show at Radio City Music Hall last year. Between their music, the lighting, and the intimacy of that venue, it was just pure magic. I wish I could bottle that energy and just carry it with me everywhere I go, super inspirational.

BETHANY: This is behind the scenes Bethany breaking in with a fact check. Khruangbin is a Texas-based trio, rooted in classic soul and R&B with influence from psychedelia dub and music from around the world. We'll link to them in the show notes.

JEREMY: Christian, thank you so much. Talking to you and even just reliving some of the collaborations you and I have had in the past is invigorating. It just really makes me want to work with you again, get back behind a computer, then back in a ballroom, and see your beautiful work up on some enormous video screens.

It really is incredible what you bring, to these presentations and to the process quite frankly. I know you've got a lot to do. I know you're off busy designing, but I really appreciate you taking some time and talking with us today.

CHRISTIAN: Yeah, this was a great conversation. I really appreciate you reaching out and wanting to have me on.

JEREMY: Well, getting to talk with Christian about design was really cool. For me, there were a bunch of takeaways, but these are the four tops.

                     • Number four, design inspiration is all around us, keep your eyes open. From furniture stores to fashion to subway ads, you just might see something you want                            to reference.

                     • Number three, less is more on a slide. Take some time to declutter words, numbers, and images.

                     • Number two, when talking with designers, be collaborative, honest, transparent, and provide a detailed briefing outlining what you're looking for. Don't feel                                like you need to speak a designer's language. Just explain what you want, what the brand needs, and let them translate it into design.

                     • Number one, trust your designer's expertise. Maybe they can take you to some places you haven't been before.

Look, I could talk about this stuff all day. If you want to talk to us about today's topic or anything about live events, check out our episode notes for more information or just go to proscenium.com to drop us a line. Send us a guest suggestion or tell us why you would make a good guest. We would love to hear from you because at Proscenium, we help presenters do their best in front of their most important audiences. As we like to say, we help brands perform. I have a sneaking suspicion that we can help your brand perform.