At Hang Time Los Angeles, our own Rogie King will be leading a design discussion on how world-class companies go beyond the logo! During this discussion, designers from world-class companies including Pinterest, Atlassian, Ueno, and others will share how their teams are crafting their branding and identity in 2018.
We’re looking forward to hearing more about illustration systems, typefaces, and branding—and how a collection of all these pieces tells a bigger story than just a logo. Want to hear this conversation? Purchase your Hang Time LA ticket now!
For now, let’s hear why Rogie is pumped for Hang Time LA:
Tell us a bit about your design background.
Whew! Mine’s a bit of a non-traditional path. No design school. No art school. I started off my design career as a Math/Computer Science double major with a hope to get into video game dev. I started programming flash and web apps for Montana’s Tourism department and fell in love with JavaScript and CSS.
I spent a lot of my time, obsessed with the web standards movement and building back and front-ends to all sorts of apps. Eventually, my love for art and design began to creep in and I wanted to learn how to make my interfaces beautiful and began dabbling in design. I launched Komodo Media, released a shit-ton of blog articles about standards-compliant front-end and designing icons.
All of that dabbling and hard work eventually landed me a job at a start-up. A few start-ups later and more skills to boot, I left that world to go full-time as a freelance web designer. Komodo Media ran for 5 years and was a huge success as a one-man digital boutique, delivering brand identities, digital designs, front-end dev work, and delicious icons.
My set of hybrid skills made me more and more attractive to small start-ups and I began to co-found ideas with friends and clients. NeonMob was one of those — a platform for collecting artwork and was a super fun ride. Around 7 years ago, I felt the pull, always curious, to get back into art. I loved art as a kid and began to teach myself to draw and digitally paint. That has been a mega fun ride that’s hardly over!
What are you working on right now?
Well, funny you say that like that…I’m currently working as a lead product designer for a company that is centered around allowing designers to show what they’re working on. i.e. Dribbble, the platform that I’ve loved for over 9 years now! I love not only getting to work on a product I love but work with a team that I now love on a product I believe in.
Aside from that, there’s always a slew of things in the works on the side. Currently, my best bud, Justin Mezzell and I are working on building Super Team Deluxe and expanding our product line….growing this little company up from a little on a whim, side project, to a real business. Super Team specializes in small designery delights that revel in irreverency and humor. It’s been a great outlet.
Last year, in realizing how much I love people and connecting people…and the power of that connection, I helped build a co-working space called “The Sidecar” with my bud and photographer Jason O’Neil in Helena, MT. It’s pretty small, but already proving the value of people just being, and working around each other.
Currently, I’m working on getting back to my artwork and making some random little pieces. i.e. A Cardi B illustration (stay away, haters! her music is fun!) and a series of sci-fi vehicle prints.
The theme for Hang Time LA is Try New Things? How do you incorporate that sentiment into your workflow?
I wish I had a magic answer for this one, but it’s a bit built in. Naturally, I’m super curious and always love tinkering with stuff. That being said, I think its a really good idea to keep yourself to a schedule and not lose too many hours of your day to distractions that bring you zero fulfillment. i.e. scanning twitter for an hour. I’ve found that I’m so much more fulfilled by creating things and tinkering with things. Mastering my schedule to allow for time for that has been paramount.
What are you most excited about for Hang Time LA?
People. Always. Connection. Laughter. Conversations.
At Hang Time LA you’ll be participating in a design discussion on how design teams craft and execute a brand story. Briefly, tell us how your design team goes beyond the logo to tell your product’s story.
Well, I’m new here, so my experience is going to be limited. So, I can talk on behalf of Super Team and there’s definitely a TON of thought there. We’ve really thought about the emails, the packaging, the copy, THE COPY. The copy is often so ignored until the end and ultimately it’s become our #1 priority. Copy and voice probably tell more about your brand story than your logo does. But, the colors, the UX, the feel, everything really really matters. At Super Team, we’ve tried to bake that into everything from backer cards, to our products, to email and the animations on the site. All of it needs to be part of the whole, driving back to the core values and statements.
At Dribbble, I can see that it’s really been thought about as well. That basketball metaphor is on the 404 page, the 500 page and all of the terms and icons reflect that brand and metaphor and that gives it spirit; gives it a heart. For my own contributions to the Dribbble team, I’m thinking a whole lot about our brand voice through illustration, iconography and our core value statement of Community First. Community First really resonates and to me, we have to put our money where our mouth is and really showcase that those words mean something to us. The team is doing a great job with that, from Matthew’s work on interviewing designers in a video format, to Sam doing interviews of real live people. I’m trying to do that by allowing other paths of discovery to get at the work — signup modals and about pages now feature revolving artwork of our talented community. The 404 page will have a fun play on color discovery of artwork, etc.
Can’t wait to find other paths to express that voice!
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