OUGD501 - Studio Brief 01 - Paula Cher Interview - Studio Culture

Following on from watching an episode of Abstract featuring legendary American graphic designer Paula Cher I read an interview about her and her role at Pentagram, an agency who I've dreamed of working at since starting out as a graphic design student. The interview covered some really interesting topics, and also explained the dynamics within the Pentagram studios, something I wasn't fully aware of before. 

I knew Pentagram had partners from the talk we had with Justus Oehler in Berlin, however, I wasn't aware that it was a cooperative, who pooled and shared it's profits equally between partners. The partners then manage and run their own teams of designers in their offices dotted around the world in cities such as New York, London, and Berlin. 

Cher's opinions on what makes a good studio network is designers being able to experiment and push themselves whilst simultaneously working in a pleasant and reasonably secure environment. 

When looking for designers to take onto her team Cher looks for people with opinions, ideas and a sense of humor. She looks for them to inspire her, have excellent craft skills and a good sense of judgment. Designers in her teams are usually hired fresh from university and stay with her for a couple of years learning the craft and the process, with her as their mentor. 

Cher believes that 'you have to fail in order to make the next discovery. It's through mistakes that you actually can grow'. I believe in this strongly and it is a good mentality to have in the field of design as clients are constantly rejecting pitches and ideas, however it is never a personal attack. You have to take criticism and mistakes with a pinch of salt and pick yourselves back up.

She goes on to say that 'The young designers on my team can make design mistakes that are corrected by me or my senior designer, but these are craft issues, and part of any young designer's early experience. They are not major failures.' Therefore I will be more open to making mistakes and learning on them in the future of my practice.