10 Lessons from Christopher Doyle

Christopher Doyle runs Christopher Doyle & Co., an independent and collaborative creative company specialising in brand identity, art direction and design. He’s also a big name in the Australian design scene. His work has won numerous local and international awards, been used as the basis for educational material in Europe and the United States and appeared in feature articles for Desktop, Creative Review and Grafik Magazine. Doyle is also well known for the ingenious Christopher Doyle Identity Guidelines 2008 and finding a piece of Nutri-Grain that looked like E.T. and selling it on eBay for a thousand dollars.

As you can imagine, we were pumped to have him join our #shillosyd part-time class for a guest lecture this past Monday.

Here are 10 things we learnt from his talk:

1. Design is about other people. In other words, “your mum doesn’t give a toss” about what fancy font or trendy pattern you use.
2. Brand is how a company, product, person or place looks, feels and sounds.
3. When designing, start with a pencil.
4. Learn to write. Or at least learn to recognise good writing. Words are as important as pictures.
5. Confidence is good. Arrogance is not.
6. Reading this book will make you a better designer.
7. For online inspiration, he has four go-to resources: Brand New, BP&O, Visuelle, This is Collate and Creative Review’s blog.
8. Portfolio-wise, don’t worry about all the bells and whistles because it’s about the work. The work is most important and you should understand why you made every decision for every project. Post-rationalise if need be.
9. He looks for three main traits in a designer: humility, hunger and empathy. He wants someone who will have a crack at everything.
10. Connect with as many people as you can. Be sure to get on Twitter and Instagram, even just to follow people you admire. But no matter what—don’t retweet nice things people say about you.

Major thanks again to Christopher Doyle for sharing his words of wisdom. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram to keep up with his amazing work! Keen to learn more? Read Christopher Doyle on Why You Should Find a Mentor via Sex, Drugs & Helvetica.

Image of What Can’t Australian Design Do?—Christopher Doyle & Co. for AGDA.