SHOWCASE
SurĽoh
Yes I’m A Designer launched its interactive graphic
design magazine at the beginning of this yearmonths and is still going strong. That’s
when I decided to make YES my main
focus. It was always what I was really
passionate about.What’s the story behind the name?
SP: I remember Martin telling me two
things he wanted from the name. Firstly, it
had to be immediately obvious what the
brand was about. Secondly, it should be
positive, something that makes people
smile. I think the name nails both of these.
Although there was a third factor: the
domain needed to be available! In the end
that was actually the clincher. Also I think
the name nicely captures the aspect of
mastering design skills. It’s something we
imagine our clients saying – with a fist
pump – after studying our courses and
landing their first job as designers.You have a great-looking responsive site.
Did you build it yourselves?
MP: We actually recently updated its whole
look and feel to reflect the growth of the
company. The site is hosted on WordPress
using The7 theme and loads of cool
plugins. It is perfect for our team because
we all work on different aspects of the site,
building new posts and pages and it makes
it easy to log in and make changes quickly.younger I was super creative but
unfortunately as I started to grow up I was
never encouraged to think of creativity as a
real skill. I actually ended up studying
politics at university but was never
passionate about it. However, at 25 I took a
year-long break to follow my creative
passions. I learnt everything I know from
online courses and enjoyed every second of
it, finally doing something I really enjoyed.
From here my design career went from
strength to strength.
Emily Melling: During my degree in visual
communication, I was extremely ideas-
driven and loved working with – or just
talking to – other creatives. I worked as a
freelance designer specialising in branding
and loved it but I always wanted more of a
sense of purpose. Now working for YES and
helping others to learn has given me that!Can you tell us how Yes I’m A Designer
came together?
MP: It actually all started out as a blog. The
idea was to share knowledge with other
creatives in a relaxed, friendly
conversational format. For a long time,
YES was my side project, something that
grew with me as I became a more
experienced designer and instructor. It
took several years of hard work and
dedication for things to really take off,
from when I first started the YouTube
channel and [began] recording and selling
online courses. An important milestone
for both me and the company was when
YouTube featured a recording of a seminar
I had given and the response was
overwhelmingly positive. That video
gained more than a million views in fourIt’s great because we can really customise
the site to suit the brand and use countless
great plugins without overcomplicating
the back-end.Your 365 Days of Creativity project
sounds insanely ambitious. What exactly
is it all about?
SP: It’s a big undertaking for sure! We
wanted to find a way to help people learn
and feel inspired by something new every
day. Time is a massive limiting factor
though, as not everyone has the chance to
sit and watch a 10- to 15-minute tutorial
each day. So we wanted to summarise a
design skill or technique in just one
minute. We have been tweaking the
format and keep exploring new ways to
improve the videos we will be producing
for the rest of the year. Consider it a public
experiment to find the best short tutorial
format for learning visual skills. Producing
365 tutorials in a year will definitely give us
an edge in this area. We have a playlist of
all of them so far on our YouTube channel.You run a monthly creative challenge;
tell us a bit about that
EM: This idea came up quite a while ago
when we were out having lunch. It goes
hand in hand with our 365 Days of365: A new video tutorial every day for a year is the centrepiece of 365 Days of CreativityPhoto: C Sheng (https://www.stormthecastle.co)Photo: C Sheng (https://www.stormthecastle.co)