Let's talk about…Graphic Design & the Power of Visuals
In our "5 questions with…" section, we introduce you to our PIABO colleagues and share their expertise in communication and PR strategies. Today: Nina Eich, Junior Art Director at PIABO. Together with PIABO’s graphic and design team, she handles all design tasks, both for PIABO and for clients. Let's dive into a world full of Photoshop, InDesign and color scales.
1. Nina, you started as graphic designer in early 2021. Could you give us an estimate of how many designs you have developed since then?
Well, I can't give you an exact number. Let's just say so many that I stopped counting after a while. When I started in early 2021, we had many new pitches for design projects, including my first design assignments for PIABO. Later, we accompanied larger design projects such as the corporate redesign of SPRK.global (which you can see in the picture above) or an employer branding campaign for our client Momox. We also created new designs for the public presentation of our clients’ social media channels and recently also finished our own social media redesign.
2. While the PR consultants accompany interviews and write bylines or press releases, your way of communication is visual. How do you create the perfect image? Do you have to pay attention to anything specific?
I studied communication design a few years ago. The first and most important lesson learned is to capture the essence of the project in terms of its content before you start designing. This principle has not changed since then. Furthermore, these fundamentals need to be communicated to the outside world through a well-thought-out design concept. In other words: the perfect visual language only succeeds if you understand the subject and can communicate it through creative means. To achieve this, detailed briefings are crucial.
3. You are not only developing internal graphics and designs for PIABO, such as our Instagram and LinkedIn graphics, but also for a range of different clients – all while working part-time. How do you manage to get everything done on time?
I think what's most important is organizing your projects properly, whether you work full-time or not. The PIABO team now consists of over 100 employees, so of course there are quite a lot of assignments for our small design team. I was very happy when we introduced Trello as a project management tool in early 2021. It gives us graphic designers, and therefore the whole team a transparent overview of current and upcoming design tasks. This way, assignments can then be distributed according to available resources. That works very well now. As long as all processes work and collaboration agreements are adhered to, working part-time at PIABO is absolutely no problem.
4. Can you tell us a little more about your day-to-day work? As a designer, it is probably stressful every now and then? How do you manage to stay calm in difficult situations?
Our design team has developed a very good workflow routine. We have a 30-minute design meeting every morning and distribute open tasks that our colleagues added on the Trello board. By "we", I mean my graphic design colleague Marinus Maier and our freelancer Daniel Masullo, both of whom I really enjoy working with. Since we have a very good team spirit and are now very well organized by using Trello, we almost always find a solution for every project. But yes, every now and then it gets stressful, especially in the case of spontaneous or time-critical requests. However, fortunately, we have always managed to deliver on time so far.
5. If you could choose a company that you would love to design something for, which one would it be and why?
I would like to design a campaign for a company in the sustainability or social entrepreneurship sector that communicates the brand's values through visual design. For example, the redesign for the start-up SPRK.global, which is fighting food waste, was a project that I would consider a “dream project” and I look forward to the projects that the design team and I will be working on in the future.
