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When most people hear the word design, they think of a specific individual or department that makes things “look pretty.” Traditionally, that’s how many organizations are structured: subject matter experts develop content and concepts before handing it off to designers for improvements and polishing.
At Throughline, we turn the traditional process on its head by including designers from the start. In this edition of Working Visually, we give you an inside look at our team and work structure and why our clients consistently benefit from this approach to drive their organizations from intent to impact.
Well-designed solutions require well-informed designers. Our digital and visual designers join our client teams and subject matter experts at the start of a project, ensuring that the path to accomplishing a client’s goal is infused with a creative approach. Injecting creatively diverse perspectives early on widens the aperture of our client conversations as our designers ask questions that others don’t even consider. The outcome: faster, more informed iteration cycles that produce solutions tailored to client needs.
Designers are often faced with a dilemma: how do you create a novel, captivating product on short timelines with limited context? That’s where our internal ideation and solutioning sessions come into play. Our project leads continuously strive to include the entire team—from the most junior support staff to senior client managers—in meetings to craft the best possible solutions for client challenges. Digital, visual and UX/UI designers participate fully as the business and content strategists develop paths forward, providing crucial insights and feedback that shape the deliverable before it goes into final design stages. This not only allows for more efficient design cycles but also builds common understanding of key concepts across the project team, enabling impactful, confident teamwork.
By including creatively diverse perspectives from the start of a project, we naturally build our teams’ skill sets as they gain valuable exposure to a multitude of markets, challenges and client relationships. This translates to an ability for Throughliners to plug and play, providing their expertise on a variety of projects where useful or requested. The mobility across our pod structure allows individuals to build their resume and discover new interests while increasing knowledge transfer and collaboration across the company.
The importance of thoughtful, intentional design is well known, as is the value of digital and visual designers in an organization of any kind. At Throughline, we aim to maximize the impact and involvement of our designers by incorporating them into our entire workflow, instead of only passing finalized content to them at the end.
Think your challenge set could benefit from a more holistic approach? Reach out! We can’t wait to tackle it with you.
‘Til next time,
The Throughline Team