This week we are interviewing the lovely, insightful, kind, and unbelievable design strategist, Karin Hibma-Cronan. Get your notebook ready, you’re in for a treat!
Takeaways:
Questions we ask everyone:
-She recently has gotten into podcasts and she is a great appreciator of Design Speaks!
-Happy, loving, and warm
-Writing first thing in the morning. Usually about what happened throughout the previous day. Processing those things with a clear rested mind. And her younger son has been encouraging her to do morning paintings which makes her nervous but she is going to try it.
-Trusting the gut is inspiring. “My husband used to say that I could make CEO’s cry. And I thought I didn’t know what he meant when he said, care about them. You, you want to know what they think, what they feel. And so many times they’ve been so busy running their businesses that nobody’s really asked them about what they care about or what they do.”
We are reading and reviewing books on the podcast every quarter!
If you would like to read along, THIS QUARTER, we’ve been reading, The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair.
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Find us on all forms of social media via @BrandiSea on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and you can email us any burning questions you want Brandi to answer on an episode at brandi@brandisea.com.
THANK YOU to the ultra-talented Vesperteen (Colin Rigsby) for letting us use his (“Shatter in The Night”) track in every episode of Design Speaks.
TRANSCRIPTION
Brandi Sea: 00:01 Hey, I’m Brandi Sea
Michelle: 00:03 And I’m Michelle. On today’s episode, we are going to be interviewing the wonderful Karen Hibma Cronan.
Brandi Sea: 00:09 So, um, I first met Karen. Um, I, I was wanting to go to the AIGA leadership conference in Dallas a couple of years ago. And, um, because AIGA New Mexico is such a small board and it was even smaller at the time, we just didn’t have the finances, um, to send more than just me. And I wanted to figure out a way to kind of reduce costs. So I got onto the AIGA message boards for AIGA national and was just like, hey, is there anyone who needs a roommate? And, um, two people responded and one of them was Karen Hibma. And, um, I don’t remember why the other person didn’t work out, but, um, Karen was just so sweet, like over messaging and was like, yeah, I would love to room with you. And, um, I’m sort of weird about like trusting. I’m like, I’m like stranger danger sometimes. And I was like, I researched her and I was like, Oh man, she looks cool. So, um, she was really cool. Uh, we ended up sharing a room for, I think it was two nights, two or three nights at the leadership conference. She was speaking there at the time. She was an AIGA national board member.
Michelle: 01:18 Okay.
Brandi Sea: 01:18 Um, she’s also a, um, she owns a company called Cronan and that she used to co-own with her, her, um, her husband
Michelle: 01:29 Yes.
Brandi Sea: 01:30 Who has since passed. Um, and she is also an AIGA fellow, which I’m not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds really impressive.
Michelle: 01:38 It sounds like scouts honor type of
Brandi Sea: 01:40 Yeah, it sounds honorable.
Michelle: 01:41 Yeah.
Brandi Sea: 01:41 Um, sounds like a huge honor, but she’s done so many cool things. She’s, uh, she was named, um, one of the 100 most creative people in business by Fast Company. Um, she has also worked with clients like, uh, Amazon Kindle to help develop that name. Um, the brand for Kindle. Um, she’s worked with Apple, Estee Lauder, Levi Strauss, SF Moma, which is the San Francisco Moma, my favorite personal favorite moma and uh, Tivo and the White House like, and that’s like a very small portion portion of the the kinds of clients she’s had. She’s super sweet and um so kind and generous and I just love her so much. So, um, you guys are in for a treat
Intro: 02:27 Welcome to Design Speaks. This lovely podcast is brought to you by a graphic design geek and a regular human being. AKA a non-design. We’re here to chat about music, pop culture, cool places or basically whatever we feel is relevant.
Brandi Sea: 02:45 If you love this show and want to support it so we can keep making more episodes, get to our Patreon
Michelle: 02:51 Its Patreon.com/designspeaks and you can give as little as $1 or as much as $50. You can give monthly, you can give one time whatever you want.
Brandi Sea: 03:01 We can’t do this without you.
Michelle: 03:02 We can’t do this without you. So go Patreon.com/designspeaks
Brandi Sea: 03:09 Well joining us today on Design Speaks is Karin Hibma-Cronan. Welcome to the show, Karin.
Karin Hibma: 03:16 Welcome ladies. So nice to be on the phone with you.
Michelle: 03:19 Thank you for being here. We’re so excited to have you.
Karin Hibma: 03:23 Thank you.
Brandi Sea: 03:24 So I know that you are from the San Francisco Bay area. Is that where you are today?
Karin Hibma: 03:31 I am in Oakland, California. Beautiful. Downtown Oakland.
Brandi Sea: 03:35 Yep. Roman Mars. I know, you know I’ve only driven through Oakland because, but I’ve been since I met you, I’ve been to San Francisco I think four or five times now.
Karin Hibma: 03:46 I know
Brandi Sea: 03:47 Which is crazy. And I never got to see you.
Karin Hibma: 03:49 You stinker.
Brandi Sea: 03:51 I just need another excuse. I’m like, well this time I didn’t, but I need an excuse to go back. So next time I’ll just go hang out with you.
Karin Hibma: 03:57 Good, good. Perfect.
Brandi Sea: 03:59 So um Michelle and I have been wanting to talk to you for quite some time now. I’m glad we finally got to, um, if you would go ahead and tell our listeners a little bit about who you are so that they can kinda get to know you a little better.
Karin Hibma: 04:15 Oh, great. Well, um, let’s see. Officially, I was Brandi’s roommate at the leadership about three years ago
Michelle: 04:22 First and foremost
Brandi Sea: 04:23 First, most importantly, you were my roommate.
Karin Hibma: 04:26 Yes, yes. Which was wonderful because she’s just a delight and a, it really was fun to get to know you.
Brandi Sea: 04:32 Oh, I would say the same for you for sure. It was so great to get to know you.
Karin Hibma: 04:37 Thank you. Well, it was my first leadership retreat and I really learned a lot about, you know, AIGA and the WorkKeys of the chapters and everything. So my back story is, I been in that design profession for, since the 1970s, if you guys can believe it.
Brandi Sea: 04:53 I can. And I’m so in awe.
Karin Hibma: 04:56 Well, I, um, started as a, um, researcher getting, um, created reference material for illustrators and, and, um, photographers and filmmakers and got to meet some really interesting people along the way. But my career has changed and morphed over the 40 plus years. And, um, currently I’m working on what I call strategic identity. So I’m helping big companies and projects and even individuals kind of go from where they are to where they want to be. Um, sometimes involving graphics, but I usually have to get a graphics partner for that because I’m not a visual designer, but I’m a design strategist so, and I just rolled off the national AIGA board and um, I’ve got a few other entanglements, things like that.
Brandi Sea: 05:48 Well, um, you put on a great workshop, uh, when I was there and, um, I just admire what you do so much. Um, I don’t know how much we talked about like my whole design process and everything, but I am very, very much about the creative process
Michelle: 06:07 Process-oriented
Brandi Sea: 06:08 Process is like my, my world. So I loved, I hadn’t, I hadn’t been to your website for quite some time and I love how the first thing you see the first line is design thinking and creative process are potent strategic ingredients in any worthwhile endeavor. I was like, this is why I got along with you so well. So would you tell me a little bit about like more in-depth what that process kind of looks like for you?
Karin Hibma: 06:35 Yeah, it, it’s really interesting and I’m so glad that you recognize that every now and then I feel like, you know, my work, my, um, website or, or any of my materials might be a little stale. And then I go back and I reread them and I’m just reenergized by what I said about
Brandi Sea: 06:53 Oh, the stuff that I believe is actually is great.
Karin Hibma: 06:57 It actually still seems like this stuff I believe in, which is pretty validating. So, um, the, uh, evolution, as I said from being a researcher, was when I would get, you know, challenged with these problems. Like the credits rates at the credit union were rollercoaster-ing and the reference materials needed reference material on, on what rollercoasters look like. Uh, back in the day you had to go to the library and
Brandi Sea: 07:26 The card catalog.
Karin Hibma: 07:27 Yeah, You had to look in the card catalog. But you know, you don’t just look up rollercoasters. There weren’t, you know, at that time books just on roller coasters. So you had to figure out where it was going to be and how you would get to it. And the most amazing thing was as I was actually getting into any of these searches, it always seemed like the things on the shelf next to it were the things that I didn’t know I’d been looking for. And you both laugh because isn’t that the way life works?
Brandi Sea: 07:57 Yes.
Michelle: 07:57 Oh my gosh. Yes
Brandi Sea: 07:58 100%.
Karin Hibma: 08:00 So, um, I have two adorable granddaughters and one of whom the other day was building a fort tent in my living room. And she was frustrated because the blankets and pillows weren’t all working. And she, I said, well, what’s your objective? And she looked at me like, what kind of word is that? And she pointed out very clear to me, to me exactly what she needed and we rearrange the pillows and within seconds she had the fort that she wanted. And I thought, damn, that’s such a clarifying question.
Michelle: 08:35 This one. It’s like, what a great thing to introduce to someone so young from the beginning. They know that this is how it’s done.
Brandi Sea: 08:42 Yeah. And that strategy is everything.
Karin Hibma: 08:46 The, the marvelous point about clarifying that with people when you sit down and have a conversation. Um, you know, one of the things that I ask, and I always think it’s kind of an impotent question, but I asked people, you know, who cares? And it’s sort of funny question because it actually kind of hurts a little bit.
Michelle: 09:06 Yeah
Karin Hibma: 09:06 It really means like who’s your audience, who really is motivated to do this? And part of it is, of course, you have to care. But the secondary part is that if you understand who cares about what it is that you’re working or doing, you start really addressing their needs rather than, um, you know, being focused on what you want to tell them. I mean, as we all know from dealing with most people in the world, you know, what we want to tell them isn’t necessarily what they want to hear.
Brandi Sea: 09:40 Usually not.
Karin Hibma: 09:42 Uh, so it’s a, it’s an interesting part, but the, the process of our work has evolved over a lot of years and a lot of experiences and there’s some wonderful things that we found, um, that kind of help people step through it. So we were involved in the early days of formulating the language around design thinking. And it’s, it’s become so many different, people have so many different perspectives on it, but we really find that part of any, what we call our approach is really looking at the history of the issues, you know, looking at everything else that’s been done or tried and then, you know, going as quickly as possible into rapid prototyping. And the reason we do that is because we find, and we tell people that we want to know what they don’t like. As much as we want to know what they do like. And getting people to feel open and honest about expressing their feelings really opens up another whole channel of connection and creativity. And going through those kinds of steps is a great way to be able to, um, bring your, your client and your audience into the process with you.
Michelle: 11:07 You said something earlier, um, just a few seconds ago about rapid prototyping. Um, so I come from the stance on this podcast that I am not a designer. I just live in the creative world. So I ask a bunch of questions that sometimes make me look really dumb. I’m not sure what rapid prototyping is. So can you kind of explain that to me and for maybe other people who don’t know what that is?
Karin Hibma: 11:28 Yeah, no you speak my language. You know, most of us, when we work with our clients, we know nothing about their business. And so we get to ask naive questions because the, um, then they get to explain it to us and usually they explain it to us kindly.
Brandi Sea: 11:47 Sometimes they treat you like you’re not too smart
Karin Hibma: 11:52 Well that’s actually
Michelle: 11:53 That’s when you speak your language to them and see if they can keep up.
Karin Hibma: 11:57 Right. Yeah, no. And then, and there are so many times it’s tempting to overwhelm people with, um, design speak, which most clients haven’t had any experience in the design world. And so, you know, it’s, it’s essentially a foreign language to them, which makes it more complicated. So rapid prototyping is, um, trying something very quickly that you haven’t put a lot of time and effort into, but that, you know, it conveys a certain kind of idea. So if we’re doing a naming project, we start what we call a bin sorting and, um, if, for example, it has to do with place names or idea names or feeling names, we’ve created those bins and then we start throwing words and language into those bins. And, um, whereas someone might not particularly like a word, if they understand that that word fits into the feeling bin, then they can understand, oh, we’re talking about these kinds of words. And then the logical thing is very often they have ideas around that as well. Um, Brandi, I know you probably do this with sketching, that there’s something really powerful about sitting down and sketching out an idea. And the problem always with sketching is people want to create an opinion about in the drawn artwork. But if they can understand that it’s just a quick idea of something. Um, it, it, it’s a mechanical engineering language as well, so it’s not so much a design language, but very often, um, if you’re, um, my oldest son is an industrial designer.
Brandi Sea: 13:54 Oh that’s amazing
Karin Hibma: 13:54 Yeah, they will pull things together just to make a look and feel of what the thing looks like. So you all know that the original Apple mouse, the app, the prototype for it, I think, I think the story is that it was a deodorant ball that was
Brandi Sea: 14:12 Oh
Karin Hibma: 14:12 Oval ball.
Michelle: 14:13 Yeah.
Brandi Sea: 14:13 Sounds right.
Karin Hibma: 14:17 You know, using the materials at hand to create something that gives you the idea of it. Amazingly enough, if you can engage people in their sense of play while you’re doing that, there’s some wonderful Picasso quotes about you can learn more about people in an hour of play than you can in, you know, days of dialogue. So
Michelle: 14:39 I love that.
Brandi Sea: 14:41 It’s so true. It’s so true. I see that with my kids and I have to remember to play more in my own work.
Karin Hibma: 14:48 You know, um, I was listening to a podcast recently, a Chip Conley who’s traded, created the Joie de Vivre chain of hotels
Brandi Sea: 14:55 Oh I love those hotels.
Karin Hibma: 14:58 Yeah
Brandi Sea: 14:58 We stay in one. We stayed in one in San Francisco one of the times we were there last year.
Karin Hibma: 15:03 Ah, well he talks about that he has a couple of children that he spends time with and he said kids are so zen because you really have to be in the moment with them. You get really focused and I thought, wow, you know, when you’re with your niece yesterday or when I’m with my granddaughters. It’s so amazing because you really do get to be in the moment with them. And I think for our clients if we can create that context where they are secure that we know what we’re doing, they can trust the process and then they can play with us. That’s essentially another way to say rapid prototyping and be hard to put in the business language. Let’s play.
Michelle: 15:46 I think, I think you just gave us like a beautiful golden nugget of wisdom of just being in the moment like that, that illustration of being in the moment with the kids and just be like, why there’s so zen just clicked with me so much that I’m like, this is what I need to take into every area, every facet of my life that I need to focus on, put down the phone, put down, get other things out of my mind and just be in the moment and that
Brandi Sea: 16:12 Which is hard to do as women. Cause we’re like, I can do more. I can do more things. I can do all the things at once.
Karin Hibma: 16:17 Well, you know, I, that is a trope that we deal with of that women are so good at multitasking. Some of us are, some of us aren’t, some guys are. Um, but it, it’s a fascinating aspect that we very often are washing the dishes, thinking about what’s on, you know, our podcast or radio that we’re listening to. We’re remembering ideally what time it is.
Michelle: 16:44 Ideally.
Karin Hibma: 16:46 Uh, we are also probably thinking about how the meeting went or what some other thing did. So we, there’s some wonderful, um, talks about conductors and how they conduct orchestras and symphonies and that kind of multitasking is the wonderful thing about hearing music come together. And if we use our minds that same way to remember that we’ve got all these different instruments. Um, one of the projects that I did when I was at researcher, and this is why it was such a fun seven-plus year run with my first company was I got commissioned by Chevron to do their centennial exhibition on creativity, the human resource and had this been, you know, had we had internet and web and all those things at that time, it would be everywhere. You can find a little bit of artifacts of it. But we interviewed contemporary living who’ve made major contributions in the arts and sciences.
Brandi Sea: 17:52 Oh, that sounds amazing.
Karin Hibma: 17:54 It does. Um, the problem that the exhibition designers had was back in the day of library books, who are those people and where do we find them and how do we do that? So I spent a lot of time making lists of names and got down to about 250 names and then we wrote letters to about a hundred people. And, and um, we got some letters back we talked to people on the phone. So one of my early phone calls was with the author, Lillian Hellman, uh, who has this wonderful deep gravelly voice, and talking with her about, you know, what our goal for the exhibition was. And um, she said, oh, I got rid of all that crap.
Brandi Sea: 18:43 Oh my gosh
Michelle: 18:46 She’s done with it.
Karin Hibma: 18:47 We’re going to put a crumpled paper and everything, but it wouldn’t be real. So I was kind of disappointed cause she’d very politely turned me down. But I also thought, wow, I just talked to Lillian Hellman
Michelle: 19:03 And she was very real with you,
Karin Hibma: 19:06 Very real with me. Um, we ended up profiling amazing people like, uh, Linus Pauling and Jonas Salk and uh, Judy Chicago and Jasper Johns and all these amazing art and science people. And each one of them had process and approach. And my job, um, after or initially contacting them was to distill all this down into something that could describe to other human beings what creative tape traits were. So, um, you know, we ended up coming up with things like challenging assumptions and seeing a new way, a lot of things. And that I would say is probably the been core of our design approach all these years, even though we went 20, 30 years where we were just happily involved in the world of, of design. Um, and now, you know, bringing that back full circle, uh, has been really interesting to be able to do.
Brandi Sea: 20:13 That’s incredible. So, um, you mentioned like me sketching and you know, doing that part of like prototyping and stuff. Um, I don’t know if you know this, but, um, you’re speaking my language when you’re talking about like using words. Um, the, the most important part of, of my own process is the word map, which, you know, mind map and all that stuff. Um, before I even like go into any of the designing or even sketching phases or research or anything like that, I do a word map. Um, to kind of, to me come up with the concept and a direction to find my design elements, um, to find hints at what the typeface might be. Um, so words are so, so, so important to me. Um, before even the visuals, how do you, um, besides these little bins, like once you’ve passed like that stage, how do you use words on your team to kind of focus in on, uh, the strategic identity of like say a new company?
Karin Hibma: 21:16 So the team is fairly comfortable in this process. And again, my team varies per project, uh, now because um, uh, it depends on essentially where I’m working and who I’m working with. But um, words really are the basis of our understanding of what the actual problem is that we’re trying to solve and what the opportunities are to solve it. So, um, one of the things that I do is interview all of the key players in the project. And um, in some cases in particularly in like tech startups, it, it might be the founders and sometimes I’m talking to their wives cause I know they’re going to be going home and having conversations with their husbands or wives in the evenings. And I want to get that input as well. Um, but I also talk with, you know, significant people and one of the things that I’ve learned is I start a conversation like that with about 10 or so basic questions that I’m gonna ask everybody that I’m having the interview with. And, uh, of course, I’ll go in different tangents with different people, but I’m just want to check that I’ve actually asked those 10 questions of, you know, each of the people that I’m interviewing because it helps me build consensus around an idea. And my, one of my favorite, favorite things to do is when I come back into any kind of group meeting or presentation with people is I can remember what each of them told me and I try to assign any new ideas or expressions that have come up to either an influence of something they said or directly something that they said. Because I’m trying to build a collection with the people that I’m working with. I don’t feel that, um, I want to come in and be the person with all the answers. I want to come in and be as elegant question says I want to be the person with the good questions to ask them information is going to come from them. So the best way that I use words is actually being really open to what they already know about whatever their subject is. Um, I was flipping through a couple of my presentations on my computer just now and I came up with a question that says, who do you think you are?
Brandi Sea: 24:01 Wow! That’s a bold one.
Karin Hibma: 24:03 I know that was like that. Who cares, one.
Michelle: 24:06 Yeah
Karin Hibma: 24:06 And what’s really interesting is if you’re in a trusted environment with people and you ask them who they think they are, well they’re gonna, they’re, they’re going to tell you. Of course, they might be shocked a little bit, but at the same time they’re going to go, wow, actually she cares.
Michelle: 24:23 Because you’ve already established that safe space with them. So it’s not a, it’s not a degrading question. It’s not a question to like hurt their feelings. Like you’ve already established that this is just a question and I’m going to ask you.
Karin Hibma: 24:35 Yes, yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s part of this process. And as you know from gathering your words and putting your information together before you go into sketches, um, there’s some great stories in all the design business and design careers. But um, very often when you sit down and even at the first meeting with a client before you’ve even gotten the job, sometimes you know what the logo should look like. You know, one of, one of the famous ones is Paula Scher, you know, wanting to do that city corp travelers saying and being able to draw the the umbrella with the essay.
Brandi Sea: 25:17 I love Paula Scher
Karin Hibma: 25:17 And you know, it’s a two funny story because she, you know, had to really restrain herself from drawing that in the meeting. If a client is paying you to do this work, um, you know, you can’t just go, oh, there’s your logo.
Brandi Sea: 25:36 Well, you could, but because they don’t see all the work you’ve put into your brain and ahead of time in order to make that even be possible.
Michelle: 25:44 Yeah
Karin Hibma: 25:46 You know, you want to validate and test and do everything. Um, it is really a wonderful process of allowing them to actually come to that as a solution rather than just presenting it to them as a done deal. So I find sometimes that, um, there are some design firms who, you know, take people to the whole design store and give them all the options. And that’s a generous, wonderful thing because sometimes people can find something that’s interesting that they hadn’t thought of doing, but there are other times where you’re essentially looking in their own closet and you’re helping them figure out what it is that is really gonna express those things about them. And, um, part of the strategic identity is that it’s so much more empowering to be your own authentic self than it is to try and be somebody else that you think you should be. And um, kind of makes it easier to remember who you are and act accordingly.
Brandi Sea: 26:59 You are so quotable, Karen, I’m just like, and we’re going to quote that and we’re going to quote that and I’m going to pull that out and put it in my notebook.
Michelle: 27:06 I love it. So when you say say strategic branding, um, you could feel, I feel like you’re kind of upping the level of what branding is and I feel like if I want this, I’m going to go to you because that’s what I’m, you know, I’m going to get, I’m going to get the real stuff, the real deal. Um, so I want to know what makes your process more effective than say, like, just the next person who does branding and identity.
Karin Hibma: 27:31 Okay. Now you’re going to get my, um, dangerous conversation about branding.
Michelle: 27:37 I’m ready
Karin Hibma: 27:37 I do really appreciate how simple the word brand is to use as a descriptor of what used to be called corporate identity or what you can be called a logo. There’s a whole, I’ve written whole reams of information about what a brand is and what a brand does. But just recently we went through an experience where a client had gone to another firm to have their branding refreshed and they came out of that process feeling overwhelmed. And, um, I offered to do a strategic audit of the work that they had done. So here’s the the the I’m
Brandi Sea: 28:27 I can tell you’re passionate about this. I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.
Karin Hibma: 28:30 So, so you know, the branding when it involves cattle involves hot metal and seared flesh.
Michelle: 28:40 It’s a process.
Karin Hibma: 28:42 I don’t want to be treated like cattle.
Michelle: 28:45 Right
Karin Hibma: 28:45 So, um, it’s one of the reasons that I steer. In other words, clients away from thinking about that they need to brand or rebrand themselves because they’re essentially what branding was used very effectively was to distinguish my cows from your cows. Um, or if you happen to have stolen a cow, it was pretty hard to have it have somebody else’s brand on it unless you figured out a clever brand to go over it that wasn’t yours. So, but the strategic identity is really at a deeper process of, as I keep saying, this idea of understanding who you really are and identifying what you want to be. There’s so many great words about the power of imagination and the opportunities for us to imagine new possible futures for ourselves or imagine the opportunities. So one of the limitations for me about the normal branding process is a whole lot of practitioners have become experts in guiding people down the same generic pathways and a client will come out at the end of that and they’ve had this process done to them and they may even have a new identity or a new materials, but they’re going to feel that they’ve been branded rather than feel like they’re stronger or have a, a a better understanding of themselves, a better opportunity to impact the kind of change that they want to make in the world.
Michelle: 30:34 Wow.
Brandi Sea: 30:35 Minds blown.
Michelle: 30:36 Really
Brandi Sea: 30:36 Officially. Like that is such, I, I never really made that connection myself between, you know like where branding the word brand comes from. I probably could have if I sat and thought about it for a minute, but understanding like, you know, working with, with as many clients as I have over the years, you know, branding can be painful, but should it be probably not.
Karin Hibma: 31:01 Well, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting because it kind of is this process of watching someone, people talk about educating their clients. And very often the opportunity is for them to actually inform or tell us about their businesses and their stories. And again, as I said earlier in this process of them telling us who don’t know their business and you know, why would they want us to know, uh, to, to know everything about how their business works. But it helps them be able to articulate something that difficult for them in a way for us to understand in a way that simple for us to understand. And to me, the part of branding is you kind of want to create a situation where, um, the, the world likes you better. And so, um, people aren’t going to necessarily like you better because you’re wearing a cool new logo. Sometimes that’s not true. Cause somebody, I’ve just admired somebody the other day who had a t-shirt on that matched his tattoos and he informed me that yes, the same artist had done the t-shirt in the tattoo. And I thought, wow
Brandi Sea: 32:22 That’s interesting.
Michelle: 32:23 But for the rest of his life
Karin Hibma: 32:26 Uh, it, it, but, um, but that the question I didn’t ask him cause he was, um, uh, you know, in the middle of his process, I was in the middle mine was, you know, I didn’t ask are you the artist?
Brandi Sea: 32:43 Ah, that would have been the question. Yeah. So what’s one thing that you would, that you would maybe like to say to, or a question that may be a new and upcoming designer, um, could ask to help them understand how to approach this whole strategic identity slash branding idea? Because as far as I know, you know, it’s, it’s definitely not being taught any differently in, you know, design schools or on skillshare or youtube or wherever they may be getting their, their design education. Um, I’m definitely gonna start thinking about this differently now that I’ve, you know, heard you say these things and kind of figure out my approach, but what is something that, you know, one, one little nugget maybe that you can share that uh, on an old designer like me or a brand new designer might be able to take with them to do better at this brand thing?
Karin Hibma: 33:44 Wow, just one thing?
Brandi Sea: 33:46 Well, I mean
Michelle: 33:48 We’ve got time if you’ve got time
Brandi Sea: 33:51 We just want to be respectful of your time, so if you want to share 10 things.
Karin Hibma: 33:56 Yeah, I appreciate that. So, um, the, there, there are so many steps to this, but the, um, I, I would say the the thing that I have to remember myself as well and you both are kind of working through this is trusting the process. So, um, I do use and, you’ve seen the bubble graph that I put on my, uh, website number thing, like the the standard steps to the design thinking the listen deeply, review, prototype, listen again, execute and deliver. And, um, the one that I throw indifferently at the end of that cycle, depending on where I’m going is the learn. Um, which is kind of the bubble that we very often forget.
Brandi Sea: 34:49 We don’t need to learn anything.
Karin Hibma: 34:52 Oh, it’s the one that, you know, sometimes the clients aren’t that interested the the the other word for it is optimize because, um, the opportunity to go through this process and be able to at the end of it, make it be as impactful as it can be in every direction. So we’re, your question was what to introduce a young design person to, to this idea is about, and my sense is that, um, first of all, we, we are building on a mountain of creative work that has been done in the last century and being able to understand and appreciate all the efforts that have been done before. That’s one of the things that I love so much about AIGA is that the original founding people were very creative and very fun. It would have been great to hang out with them. And I think today that young design people, they’re being challenged in their schools and in their work to accomplish things. But this element of play, a really a remembering that there’s so much imagination and so much power, there’s that great Steve Jobs quote. And I think he was probably quoting someone else was that you know, everything else is a failure of the imagination. So, um, if, if we can be open to trusting that this is a wonderful way to express ourselves, to be able to play, to engage. I think some of the people that I’ve interacted with over the years who seem to be having the most fun and you know, we both adore, Paula Scher, Michael Baroo, the, there an amazing designer and uh, understanding how much of their work process was about play. And it isn’t. You don’t play by yourself. You play with people. So remembering that the client needs to feel comfortable enough to play with you. Um, so when, when I was laughing about just one, there we have a set of rules that we very often share with our clients and um, I won’t run you through all of them, but some of them involve that we want to be talking to the key decision-makers right from the beginning.
Brandi Sea: 37:32 That’s so important.
Karin Hibma: 37:34 You know, when you get a chance to ask to do that is at the beginning of the process because when they’re commissioning you to do the work, you’re getting to define the, the, the game roles and um, what happens if you don’t get to, out of respect, talk to that key decision maker right in the beginning is that whatever you do is going to get delivered to them. And it won’t include their thinking if they haven’t been able to be part of the process.
Michelle: 38:08 That’s good
Karin Hibma: 38:08 So, even if you’re working, for example, with a marketing manager and they’ve got to report to their boss, say, would you arrange for me to have, you know, 15 minutes or whatever with your boss, just so that we can and include them in your process so that we can download what they’re thinking about this. And then you’re an ally, then you’re in league with them. So
Brandi Sea: 38:34 And the trust just goes up at that point.
Karin Hibma: 38:37 It does because you’re also, it’s not just their job that’s on the line. You’re responsible. You’ve become engaged.
Brandi Sea: 38:46 Right. Wow, that’s amazing. I’m, I’m like just taking all of these things.
Michelle: 38:52 Are you processing?
Brandi Sea: 38:53 I’m processing. Um, process is seriously like the biggest thing for me and we, we make a point to ask every guest about their process. Um, I love that so much of what you’re saying aligns with, with stuff that I’ve been saying for a long time. Um, like you said about reading like your own stuff on your website like it’s just so validating to hear someone else kind of reinforce what you already believe. And so it’s just been so encouraging. And I hope that our listeners have just been writing so many notes because I have
Michelle: 39:31 Or listen again and again
Brandi Sea: 39:32 Listen again. Um, so we have, um, we have some questions that we ask everyone that are just some like quick, easy, hopefully, easy answer type of questions if you still have time for those.
Karin Hibma: 39:48 Absolutely
Michelle: 39:48 So the first question is, um, what are you listening to reading, watching right now that’s just blowing your mind
Karin Hibma: 39:57 Wow. Well, um, I got into listening to podcast in the last year and a half or so pretty seriously. And um, I find that I learned so much by having all these different voices in my ear at different parts of the time. So I did actually go through several of yours just to get your, your tone and
Brandi Sea: 40:27 Yay
Karin Hibma: 40:29 How you’ve evolved this over time. And I learned a lot from the the um, you know, pieces that you were saying about your work. And I, as we said, when I first met you, Brandi, was just that, that I really admire that the energy that you have in sharing all this with everyone. So, um, I wouldn’t say that it was necessarily blowing my mind, but I am a great appreciator
Michelle: 40:54 Love it
Brandi Sea: 40:55 Oh my gosh, that means so much to me. You don’t even know. Thank you.
Karin Hibma: 41:00 Oh, and I also appreciate the wonderful way that you’ve shared the path that you have with your family because I’m, you know, in the, in the uh, ticket round of watching children go through life and they are just amazing little people, aren’t they?
Brandi Sea: 41:18 Oh my gosh. So amazing. They blow my mind on the daily.
Karin Hibma: 41:22 Yeah, yeah, no, I have to admit that that there, that’s there. They don’t, they don’t know what they don’t know and um, they just assume that they can know everything you know of course
Brandi Sea: 41:36 Yes, oh my gosh, that is a conversation I have with my son all the time. Do you think you know more than mommy? Cause I’m trying to teach you something.
Karin Hibma: 41:45 Yeah. So you’ve got to get a did Jujitsu on that.
Brandi Sea: 41:51 Oh my goodness. That’s amazing. Well, you are officially the first person to say that what you’re listening to right now is us, so I’m super, super happy about that.
Michelle: 42:01 Thank you.
Brandi Sea: 42:01 Okay. So question two, um, can you describe yourself in three words
Karin Hibma: 42:08 Oh
Brandi Sea: 42:11 Yeah this is usually the one people get hung up on, but I believe in you because you’re good with words.
Karin Hibma: 42:14 Um, yeah, but I have my process.
Michelle: 42:17 It’s going to take her a second, hold on
Brandi Sea: 42:20 She’s like, please hold.
Karin Hibma: 42:22 Uh Huh. Um, Gosh, uh, well the three easy one that come to mind are happy, loving and warm.
Brandi Sea: 42:32 Hey
Michelle: 42:32 That’s great. And that’s exactly what I feel from you. So, you’re not wrong. You’re right.
Brandi Sea: 42:38 Usually your gut is right on stuff like that.
Karin Hibma: 42:42 Yeah. Well, I could be more aspirational, but it’s better to be authentic.
Brandi Sea: 42:46 It’s true. It’s very true
Michelle: 42:46 Yes. I like that. Um, what’s the first thing you do in the morning besides look at your phone or, you know, go pee.
Karin Hibma: 42:54 I do not look at my phone. That’s why I got caught off guard a little bit this morning. I taught myself the wonderful process of getting up in the morning and uh, writing. And uh, so I roll out of bed, go and turn the porch light off, look out the front window, grab a glass of cold water, and then I come into the writing desk that’s in my room. And, um, I have a journal that I’ve been keeping for quite a few years now, but, uh, if I don’t have much time in the morning, I write something quick. If I have more time, I write as long as I feel like writing. And um, usually it’s um, uh, a bit of a reporting to myself what happened the previous day. But what I’m doing is I’m processing all those thoughts that I had during, you know, as you’ve gotten rested, you start having morning thoughts and I process those and I often find myself coming back to that journal during the day because I was so clear on what I was thinking about a problem that I’m working on, a project that I’m doing during the day. So, um, that, that’s been the most rewarding thing. And my younger son has challenged me to get up and instead of doing morning pages to do morning paintings. He’s made, it makes me a little nervous. But I am going to set up, uh, a stack of papers and some, um, don’t really like watercolors. That’s my problem. I think I might try pastels or something like that, but, but it’d be really nice.
Brandi Sea: 44:39 I like acrylics, they’re so easy.
Karin Hibma: 44:41 Yeah.
Brandi Sea: 44:41 I gave up on watercolors
Michelle: 44:42 They’re very forgiving acrylics are.
Karin Hibma: 44:45 But you know, I’m wondering, I think I might take a vacation and do that for myself. Just give myself a week, 10 days or something and have that be the morning routine because I’m very curious what that’s going to do because we’ve all talked a lot about words. Words are so powerful. But, uh, I came into this world thinking I was going to be a painter and, um, it’s amazing to me how that’s kind of like, oh yeah. Yeah. I can do that too
Brandi Sea: 45:16 You paint pictures with words.
Karin Hibma: 45:18 Thank you.
Brandi Sea: 45:20 Okay, so last question. Um, how do you want to be remembered
Karin Hibma: 45:24 Hm, uh, I would probably say again, the trusting the gut as inspiring.
Brandi Sea: 45:38 I would, I would say you are already that, so I think you have a good chance there.
Karin Hibma: 45:44 Thank you. Well, I just, I, that love part is, I find that I believe in people. And um, my husband used to say that I could make CEO’s cry. And I thought I didn’t know what he meant when he said, care about them. You, you want to know what they think, what they feel. And so many times they’ve been so busy running their businesses that nobody’s really asked them about what they care about or what they do or nobody really.
Brandi Sea: 46:15 How they fell
Karin Hibma: 46:15 So there, there’s a part of this, um, we go in working with clients if, for example, it is a naming project, you know, they only do that ideally once or twice in their business life. But if they can remember this design thinking approach and, um, how we got to that, it can be very effective for them in a lot of their other problem-solving in the world. Or if it goes to being making forts on the living room sofa, what’s your objective? Who Cares?
Michelle: 46:51 Well, I can, I can feel that. I feel like you have a very loving and kind and warm presence. So all of those things are true of you. I know, especially, I mean brandy has already told me about you and how much of how great of a time she had in Dallas together with you. So I think you’re on the right track. You’re just a great person to talk to and listen to. We learned so much from you. Thank you.
Brandi Sea: 47:15 Yes, I am so, so happy that we finally got you on the phone and um, I really hope that I can actually get out there to spend some time with you at some point in the future.
Karin Hibma: 47:26 I would love it. Well, it’d be fun to share this world with you because it’s always fun to see it through fresh eyes. You know the best way to see your own town is to have somebody come and visit and then you get to be
Michelle: 47:36 Totally
Karin Hibma: 47:37 Yeah.
Brandi Sea: 47:38 It’s so true. It’s so true. Oh Man. Well, thank you, Karin, so much for joining us again and I hope that we get to talk again soon.
Michelle: 47:47 First, can you tell us where people can find out more about you? If there’s social media, Instagrams
Brandi Sea: 47:52 This is your, this is your plug time.
Michelle: 47:54 We want to plug you, but you plug you.
Karin Hibma: 47:56 All right. Well, um, uh, the a website is Cronan.com it also redirects. I do have the URL for elegantquestions.com and elegantquestionsdesignanswers.com. So maybe those will get filled up eventually with just the the, uh, creative material that I’m generating. Um, I’m on Linkedin at Karen Hibma-Cronan. Um, I’m on Twitter at just Karin Hibma. I don’t tweet very often, but I love reading interesting and great tweets.
Brandi Sea: 48:31 Same.
Karin Hibma: 48:32 And, um, otherwise, I mean, I’m very googleable there’s an awful lot of things that have been written or done or said over time and I’m just so grateful that I haven’t really put my foot in it too big.
Michelle: 48:47 It’s a scary thing. Well, we’re going to add to that in a good way and make you even more googleable.
Brandi Sea: 48:52 Yes.
Karin Hibma: 48:53 Thank you. Well, what a pleasure. And, uh, I’m just intrigued with all your listeners and their processes and their, what they’re gaining from these listening to these conversations. So keep on keeping on.
Brandi Sea: 49:06 Thank you, Karen. Have a great day.
Karin Hibma: 49:09 All right. Thank you, ladies. Bye-bye
Brandi Sea: 49:10 Bye
Michelle: 49:10 Bye Bye. So there she is. There she was there she goes. She’s incredible.
Brandi Sea: 49:18 Yeah.
Michelle: 49:19 Karin is just a light and she’s like a, a soft, gentle light that I just really enjoyed listening to
Brandi Sea: 49:25 She’s like a warm light.
Michelle: 49:26 Like I feel like I, I’m welcome at her home and I’ve never met her in person. In the flesh.
Brandi Sea: 49:32 Yeah. She was like so nice to meet you in person. I was like, aw,
Michelle: 49:35 You’re sweet.
Brandi Sea: 49:36 She’s so kind. She’s so wise.
Michelle: 49:38 So wise. I’m, I think, I think she has her years of experience have, have, um, instead of hardening her heart and making her callous, they’ve just softened her. And I think that’s probably something she’s had to focus on. Not everybody has that, you know, we get old and you know, senial
Brandi Sea: 49:57 I know more than you
Michelle: 49:57 Yeah.
Brandi Sea: 49:58 And you must listen to me because I’m smart.
Michelle: 50:00 She’s so, she’s just so likewise and understanding And I loved that about her. Um, I learned so much from this interview and I hope that everyone listening did too. And I hope you listen again and I hope you share it with people. I really think, and I believe that this conversation we just had with Karin is more for more than just the designer. You know, we have so many little golden nuggets to take out and just put as like quotations that should spread across the world for everyone to see and hear.
Brandi Sea: 50:32 I know I just, I got to say, I, I by no means feel like I have anything nailed down. Like I, at one point she said something about, you know, they’ve developed their process and it’s constantly evolving and stuff and that’s how I feel about mine. Like even though I’ve got like these, these solid steps that, you know, we’ve covered in past episodes, there’s like little, like offshoots of each step or like slight changes in description for each step that have kind of evolved over time and after listening to her now. Um, because what I say about myself is that I, I am a brand strategist, like, which I knowingly changed because I don’t want to just be that girl who makes logos because it’s not the same thing.
Michelle: 51:14 Right.
Brandi Sea: 51:14 Um, but a lot of what she had to say really, really spoke to me and um
Michelle: 51:19 Reenforced
Brandi Sea: 51:19 Um, really, really read, yeah. Reinforced what, you know, what I’m already doing, but also kind of helped me figure out how to add to and enhance what I’m doing. Um, I love that she, she’s literally said it’s design speak
Michelle: 51:35 Yes.
Brandi Sea: 51:35 Which is not something that you hear a lot, but you know, design jargon is design speak, which is, which is like one half of why this is called what it is.
Michelle: 51:45 Yeah
Brandi Sea: 51:45 Um, you know, but also design speaks like it does speak to people. And I was just like, oh my gosh
Michelle: 51:50 She said it. She said it.
Brandi Sea: 51:52 It’s like I don’t ever think, I don’t even think we’ve, I have ever actually defined that.
Michelle: 51:58 I don’t think so.
Brandi Sea: 51:59 I just kind of assume that people understand, which is stupid cause that’s why we’re here. So design speak is design jargon and that’s part of why this is named what it is. So thank you, Karin, for reminding me. I haven’t clarified that 108 episodes later.
Michelle: 52:14 We all make mistakes.
Brandi Sea: 52:15 Yeah. So, um, I just, I wanted to pull just a couple of things out while it’s still fresh in my mind before I like forget. Um, I love that she, she said that you need to, I wrote where is play in my process. Question Mark. Question Mark. Question Mark. And I, I don’t know, that’s something I need to figure out. I do play, I don’t, I don’t know what it’s like in where, how I find my inspiration. Like that’s, that’s play. Um
Michelle: 52:38 But does it feel like play is the question?
Brandi Sea: 52:40 I don’t, I don’t know.
Michelle: 52:41 So you need to,
Brandi Sea: 52:42 Yeah. I need to be more mindful of the play
Michelle: 52:44 Zen
Brandi Sea: 52:44 Yes. Be More, more zen in the play. Um, another thing is how she calls, she calls, she called it like approach their, their approach to things. And I think that’s a much more friendly way of saying like, this is how we do things.
Michelle: 53:01 Yeah.
Brandi Sea: 53:02 It’s like this is how we approach it. It’s like approach is so gentle.
Michelle: 53:05 Yes.
Brandi Sea: 53:06 It’s not like this is how we do
Michelle: 53:07 This is how we do it. It’s a pro. Yeah. No, totally. It’s, this is how you, this is how I yeah. Face it, head on and I guess there’s no better word than approach.
Brandi Sea: 53:19 Yeah, and she did it.
Michelle: 53:20 She, she did it. She’s a wordsmith.
Brandi Sea: 53:22 Yeah. I also love the, um, I don’t know, and some ways she feels like I could be her in like 40 years.
Michelle: 53:30 I was so thinking the same thing
Brandi Sea: 53:31 Like she’s got this little like feistiness to her, but also like she wants to understand and like do things the right way. And she, she’s just like such a mentor in that way. Um, how she was talking about like the, who cares? I’m like, that sounds like something I would say.
Michelle: 53:48 Yeah.
Brandi Sea: 53:48 You say who cares? But actually, if someone trusts you, it doesn’t sound mean.
Michelle: 53:52 Yes.
Brandi Sea: 53:52 Like, I’m not doing this to be mean. I’m doing this to kinda like approach you differently or whatever. So
Michelle: 53:57 Yeah
Brandi Sea: 53:57 I have a lot too. I think I personally am going to need to listen to this interview a couple of times, um, because she just had so many things to say. The whole idea of branding cattle and all that
Michelle: 54:11 Mind-blowing.
Brandi Sea: 54:12 I was literally like speechless listening. I’m like, which hardly ever happens to me.
Michelle: 54:17 It’s just, it’s just why didn’t we think of that? Like obviously
Brandi Sea: 54:19 Yeah
Michelle: 54:21 It’s obvious.
Brandi Sea: 54:22 Yeah.
Michelle: 54:23 But maybe that’s why.
Brandi Sea: 54:24 Yeah. Because it’s just too easy. It’s the easy thing.
Michelle: 54:27 Yeah.
Brandi Sea: 54:27 So, um, thank you, Karin. Thank you so much. I’m so happy that you are a listener and that, um, you had so much to share with us and you were so encouraging and if I can have a portion of your wisdom in 40 years, I will, I will be happy.
Michelle: 54:44 Yes. That’s amazing. Um, so
Brandi Sea: 54:47 Where can people find us?
Michelle: 54:48 They can find us on all forms of social media via, @brandisea Go ahead and spell your name for everyone.
Brandi Sea: 54:53 B R A N D I S E A
Michelle: 54:56 And you can also find us on Instagram @designspeakspodcast. If you want to just want to just follow us specifically. Um, either way, it’s up to you. Um, we’re on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, if you want a, we also have a design speaks podcast, music playlist on Spotify
Brandi Sea: 55:13 Which is super fun.
Michelle: 55:14 Yes. We, we just talked about how
Brandi Sea: 55:15 We default to it.
Michelle: 55:16 We default to it all of the time. Like, I don’t know what I want to listen to. I’ll listen to all the things I like on this playlist
Brandi Sea: 55:22 Yeah, I know for sure that I love every one of these songs. Well, I mean you know
Michelle: 55:26 There’s like one or five that I don’t, but whatever. It’s like fine. And then sometimes I’m like, I’m not really feeling like this song today. Skip.
Brandi Sea: 55:33 Yeah
Michelle: 55:33 It’s fine. I’m a huge things to Vesperteen for allowing us to use his song Shatter in the Night as the intro and outro to our podcasts
Brandi Sea: 55:42 It still gives me all the feels. Gotta be honest.
Michelle: 55:45 Love it.
Brandi Sea: 55:45 Feels for the show. I mean
Michelle: 55:46 Yeah. Um, and if you get any value out of this podcast, please share it. Please send it to your friends. If it’s a specific episode, let them know. And then if you want to rate and review us, that’d be great on iTunes. Um, I think that’s it. Thank you, Joelle, for doing our transcription and show notes, you’re incredible. Um, she works hard.
Brandi Sea: 56:11 Thanks to our husbands for letting us take out time away
Michelle: 56:14 And thanks to the academy. Have a great day.