Every designer brings their own approach to the design process. As that process grows to engage more disciplines and is fed by a multitude of skills, the task of harnessing diverse creative potential and directing it toward a common goal is not a task to be taken lightly. Rie Norregaard is tackling just that and spoke with us about leading collaboration and the skills designers need to succeed.

Rie Norregaard is Creative Director in the New York studio of the esteemed international design firm, Frog Design. There she guides teams and is in charge of digital media and digital design. She works closely with design analysts, strategists and industrial designers on projects focused on interaction and visual design.

In a forecast for the design industry, are you able to identify trends that you see from your perspective.

We’re an interdisciplinary firm—we have many disciplines of design and design thinking under one roof. I interview a lot of designers, and in them we look for the ability to think outside the set of tools a designer might have from school or one particular work experience is being challenged. Designers need to continue to add to their skill-set all of the time. I see that becoming more and more relevant for designers, not just in this environment, but in other environments also.

I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone, but the ability to really stretch is becoming more and more important. Not just the ability, but also an active interest in doing that. So there’s a continuous process of learning, both in term so tools and in new areas of design. We find that very useful and necessary in the way that we work. It’s not easy to come by, frankly.

Do you see that happening with traditionally trained designers, or are you seeing other people with those outside skills already, adapting to design roles

I think it happens in both directions. Right now, we see people who are steeped and trained in technology taking on design roles and taking responsibility for design, which is interesting because their process is somewhat different and they arrive at solutions differently. On the other hand, people who are trained “traditionally” (whatever that means in design right now), also need to be very interested in technology, for instance, in order to create good and relevant solutions.

That’s what we’re seeing a need for more and more. The people that are most successful have that ability to move in and out, not to be experts, but to be interested and eager to collaborate in meaningful ways.

How is working with designers who collaborate this way improved the development of projects compared to past methods?

We have a lot of projects that span from web-based and application-based solutions into packaging and out-of-box experience. That’s the breadth of touch points for a brand, for instance. It’s very powerful for us when one designer is able to give input along all of those touch points. It can be challenging to understand an out-of-box experience and how a brand is perceived and dealt with in that way and also understand what that means in a web-based environment. The designer must translate values across the various experiences that we want to create.

Do you find in those situations where some of the touchpoints are very technical and others are more emotional a challenge to resolving the tension between aesthetics and mechanics?

Both aspects are part of the craft of design. It’s also very much dependent on how a particular designer approaches design. It takes all kinds. Different people have different ways of approaching a process and we try to create an environment here that allows for that variety. It’s the tension between different working styles and different ways of arriving at a solution that nurtures an extremely creative environment.

So, you’re embracing very personal design perspectives within your process?

Yes. And that’s a good thing to know about yourself as a designer—to know what you’re process is like and how you best arrive at solutions. This is especially true when you work with other people. Somme people, somehow, internalize information and based on informed intuition come up with a solution or a part of a solution and they’re able to share it. Other people use a much more analytical, step-by-step process This can be easier to follow, but for some people that’s just not how their their design brains work. It’s important to accommodate both types of processes in a creative environment.

You’re responsible for helping those processes coalesce into one cohesive process.

Yes. The goal is to create enough structure so people can communicate and work together. Allowing for differences of approach is very, very important.

Rie Norregaard joins Etienne Fang, Elizabeth Pastor, Leslie Wellott and moderator Chee Pearlman at The Future of Design in a Global Market, a panel discussion on what’s driving change in the design industry.

Wednesday September 5 2007
7:00-9:00pm
Cooper Union’s Wollman Auditorium
51 Astor Place
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