Truth vs. Double G

On the 6th of November 2008, the Truth came to Stockport College.

Truth is a design agency that prides itself on telling its clients the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The agency consists of 2 members, Darren Scott, creative director, and Jane Kaye, managing partner.

Darren began by talking to us about how he started in the industry. With a great deal of courage, he began his process of getting a job by door knocking on agencies he had short-listed. By forcing himself in front of prospective employers as well as turning down opportunities to work at smaller design agencies, he managed to bag himself a job at McCann - Erickson, one of the leading agencies based in London. After serving them for a number of years as a senior designer, Darren became tired of not having control of the accounts he was working on and decided he wanted more freedom to work with his clients on a more personal level.

So in 2006, Darren decided to branch out with Jane Kaye, an account handler at McCann - Erickson for 7 years (where they met each other) and have not looked back since. Their client list includes big names such as Christie's Hospital, Durex, Allsports and the Versus Cancer charity. Darren has won numerous design awards for his work and also designs his own fonts, which are regularly used as corporate typefaces.

During the lecture, Darren went on to explain his creative process and some of the projects he has worked on. Although his expertise is in typography and branding, Darren has turned his hand to many different disciplines in design such as packaging, product and web design. His knowledge across these aspects of design as well as his own specialty of type has enabled Darren to collaborate with other creatives and utilise their skills. This also brought fresh eyes and ideas to the projects and helped Darren to develop the idea further and onto other mediums.

Jane Kaye then talked of the business side of Truth, something seldom thought about by students breaking into the industry. She explained that there is a lot more to design than just creativity. She talked about clients and the relationship Truth tries to generate with them in order to get the most success out of the project they are working on. As a small company, Truth are able to have close relations with their clients and to really understand the client's position in the market as well the problem they have in terms of the design required. They also allow them to become involved in the creative process where necessary.

Jane also gave some pointers when trying to pitch to the client. She explained the importance of justifying the creative process in order to get the client on-board the concept of the design so that they can understand where it has come from and what has informed it. This involves rationalising your decisions to the client so they can see how this solves the problem through the design.

On the 21^st of November 2008, Grant Gilbert, founder of Double G Studios also came to Stockport College to present his experience in the design industry.

Gilbert started his education on the ND course at Stockport College specializing in motion graphics for two years. He then went onto UCE in Birmingham to study a degree in graphic design. This was more print-based than digital so Gilbert acquired both a digital and analogous way of working with graphics.

Gilbert began his working life for Planet 24, the company who produced the Big Breakfast show and the Word, both aired in the nineties.

Channel4 then acquired his services for him to produce TV idents for their new channels More4 and Channel4 Music where he worked heavily with moving image.

Gilbert then went onto to work freelance for 8 years and set up Double G Studios. With Grant Gilbert collaborating with many designers and agencies, his company presented a much more polished and established impression to clients and collaborators than just Grant Gilbert alone, albeit the truth as Grant Gilbert runs and owns the agency on his own.

Gilbert then went on to explain his working process from conception to final production. He went through certain projects he had worked on and explained how he got to the finished project.

All his work starts in sketchbooks, with many of his ideas being created and stored, waiting for an application. When he feels an idea can be applied, he uses it and puts it into production.

With most of his work being moving image, Gilbert relies on storyboards to ensure that his production is as close to the visualization as possible.

Gilbert also uses a range of scales to produce his work. From producing the work himself in his studio to hiring out production space in order to film his work with a full production team.

As oppose to brainstorming his ideas in his office on his own, Gilbert prefers to go into the office of his collaborators and bounce ideas around in the hopes that something different (that he may not have thought about) may come out of it.

The similarities between the two agencies are that they are both small independent companies run by the people who produce the work. Here is where the similarities end.

The same working processes can’t be applied, as the work they both produce is completely different with Truth producing print-based design and identities for corporations, while Double G Studios creating moving image.

Double G will collaborate with other designers and agencies on most of their projects in order to gain outside influences that may contribute to the overall concept. Whereas the Truth collaborates with other agencies to produce the ideas they have created. The Truth seems like a very insular company with a lot of their ideas coming from within the company, mainly Darren Scott. However, Double G likes to brainstorm with many different people to come up with a concept together.

In terms of my own design, I feel a lot more comfortable brainstorming with a group in order to get different experiences from different individuals in the hopes to develop a concept from different aspects.

With Truth having a managing partner, this leaves the creative director a lot more time to concentrate on design. Jane Kaye spends her time handling accounts and dealing with the financial side of the company.

Grant Gilbert has to deal with all of these things on his own and therefore has to split his time between his accounts and producing work.

Most students don’t realize how much there is to design besides the creative part and being in a much larger company this is never an issue as there are people to handle this for the designers. Darren Scott is lucky in the fact he works in a small company but still doesn’t need to handle the accounting side of the business.

Most of Double G's clients are based around TV and his reputation tends to be the reason why he gets his accounts. Although he still needs to pitch his ideas, his previous work and his previous clients are what have gotten him to the point he is at now. Truth still go out and fight for clients through pitches although the awards Darren Scott has received for his design in the past is also a major selling point for the clients they pitch to. So in way, both agencies (being small independent companies) rely on reputation in order to get work in the industry.