But to talk about design thinking with your local AIGA chapter and a room filled with passionate creatives and nonprofits? Priceless.

However, before I get into all the juicy details of what went down, let’s take a look at what design thinking actually is.

It’s certainly a pretty hot buzzword and one many often hide behind in an attempt to appear smart.

Currently sitting in the middle of classical design practices and creativity at scale, design thinking is an extremely useful way to navigate tons of ideas and possible solutions down into feasible paths of execution.

In short, design thinking is an action-oriented approach to generating creative solutions to complex problems.

So action is what we took to visualize and start on solutions for things like marketing strategies and campaigns, brand organization and positioning, business models, and much more.

We started things off by diving into empathy mapping on the individual layer before moving into applying empathy towards the users.

Usage is quite simple and best used by applying empathy to yourself first.

Otherwise, how will you be able to apply empathy and understanding to the user?

Download the Loveable Empathy Map

When using an empathy map, questions like “What Do They Think and Feel?” or “What Are Their Influences?” open key doors to understanding and connecting with our ideal communities as well as customers.

When applied to yourself, it opens up key perspectives to the stories you tell yourself and how you tell those or your brand stories to others.

Paired together and they ignite a connection that allows for things to remain relevant and valuable in a way that conventional brand and design strategies tend to miss.

As the day progressed, participants of the AIGA Changemakers workshop also had the opportunity to break into various groups and apply the information given earlier in the day.

It was truly impressive to see each team set clear goals, responsibilities, and take action on numerous items within such a short amount of time.

Outside of the amazing energy from start to finish, it was also a consistent experience of diverse thoughts and perspectives.

It didn’t what age, gender, or race was present. It didn’t even matter how much experience you had either, everyone had something valuable to bring to the table and was respected for it.

If anything, that’s how our communities should always be.

Especially if you’re looking to improve the organizational culture from being outdated to one that’s relevant, diverse, and inclusive.

It was also pretty fun to switch things up and pull the online community into the mix of things as well.

Whether it’s mental health, building communities, or even providing resources to remote areas of the world, when done right, design thinking can be a powerful asset to any individual or organization.

While I can go on about design, processes, tools, and how amazing of an experience it was as a creative, I suggest you poke through the slide deck below.

Download The Deck

If there’s one thing you take away from this, I hope it’s this.

Design thinking isn’t a process, it’s a lifestyle.

One that helps to reduce risk, improve creativity, boost opportunities for innovation, and increases sustainability.

So where are you going and how are getting there?

Answering that is one of the best ways to start incorporating design thinking into your creative flow.

Looking to have a design thinking or similar workshop with your team or organization? Send me a message!

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At its core typography is one of the items that can either make or the experience a user has while visiting your site. Mobile devices have only put more importance on having good type on your website.

The fonts you select give your site a unique character. They help to convey the purpose found within your website content. One thing good typography can’t fix however is poor content.

Let’s take a look at a few examples of good website typography.

1. World Baking Day

This site features a great mix of lively colors, rounded corners (used appropriately). Mentone and Museo Sans Rounded font faces are combined for a delightful experience. As a person who enjoys the process of creating delightful and delicious desserts for friends, this site certainly brings that joy to the web.

2. Kickpoint

With bold color usage, Kickpoint does an excellent job of delivering a kick by using Maga and Karla throughout the site.

3. Google for Entrepreneurs

Brand extensions often happen in unlikely places. With a product line spanning basically every function of life keeping the content experience consistent across so many mediums and devices is a tall order. Here we have Roboto and Roboto Slab paired together to give an experience that is easily recognizable and provides a harmonious flow to the content of the site.

4. Creatures & Features

This delightful site pairs together Roboto with handwritten type and a splash of Courier.

5. Elbow

It’s great to see examples of great type from all over the world. Here we have the fine folks over at Elbow pairing Galano Grotesque with Maison Neue.

6. Flywheel

When it comes to finding hosting it can be a pain to sift through what features are included and what price am I paying for what. Most web hosts websites tend to leave me feeling as if they may close tomorrow or if they don’t will be a customer experience nightmare to deal with. The guys and gals over at Flywheel have done an excellent job making things easy to navigate. Here we find Montserrat paired with Source Sans Pro.

7. Headspace

Aimed at helping individuals become more creative Headspace uses Brandon Grotesque to effectively navigate users throughout the site. Making information easy to digest and memorable.

Takeaway

As you can see great typography on a website can help share the story of your website in a variety of ways. It can be the difference between someone enjoying a visit to your site and wanting to return and them quickly leaving to go somewhere else.

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So here is a nifty little call that dynamically outputs copyright information for your WordPress projects or themes.

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So what is so good about design? Simply it’s a catalyst, it brings together ideas and creative solutions that should be executed upon. That opens up our minds, connects a product to emotion but best of all it’s done by people and not purely machine.  Within the center of us all being creative is at our core. It’s how we solve problems, have relationships but overall it allows us to live.

Well if design has no value, what’s is its true purpose? The purpose is simple, to create value, if we look back to the very start of our lives we can realize that each and every one of us are trained to pick out what looks best, what appeals to our senses, the things that catch our eye, or things that may look different. With this in mind, we can realize that design is at the very root of this. Hardwired into our very being. However design is only truly able to posses value when connected with other industries and areas of life to allow us to express communicate with those around us.

When working with the creatives around us, we must learn that we too are a creative.

The takeaway:

• Design has no value on its own.
• When used to creatively create solutions and drive sustainability, design has value.
• Creatives are in every field, work together with the talented members of other fields.

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