Unit Verse

What’s your job at Unit?

Most of my days are split between working with clients and working with customers; both are intrinsically focused on communication and problem-solving. For our Unify customers, I’m a trouble-shooter, while my client-focused projects allow for much more creative freedom.

How did you end up working here?

In 2005, I started as an in-house web designer and front-end developer at a technology company in North Louisiana. I did a ton web development, but there were not a lot of creative adventures. A week before my wedding I left with no prospects, and several months later I landed a position in a small DFW suburb as a web designer. My wife and I moved, optimistic of things to come, but the departure of a big client there left me without a job after only two months. Very soon after that happened I chatted with a good friend, Kyle Steed, told him what happened, and he directed me to the nearest Unit Interactive.

Excellent (and thanks, Kyle!). So what’s great about your job? Anything?

When I work on Unify support, I get to work with fellow web designers and developers across the world to identify problems and implement solutions. Since I’m on this side of the system now, it’s very interesting to see how people approach the magical support desk. It’s definitely changed the way I request support when I need it.

More generally speaking, whether it’s with Unify customers, our clients, or my fellow Unitards, I love talking with people and learning about them. Everyone’s story is unique. As a designer, I get to tap into the infinite stories that make us human and then develop a relationship through them, and being able to do that day-to-day is very rewarding. Also, I can be weird and it’s okay.

You mentioned that your experience on the Unify support line has changed the way you request support when you need it. How so?

When requesting support in the past, I’ve made myself the center of the world. I have a problem, I come to the magical support desk, and you fix this problem. Although, that is how it should seem, the work behind the scenes is much more difficult that I previously imagined. After juggling many support requests at a time I now understand how demanding any support position can be, and my appreciation for it has dramatically increased.

Speaking of exposure to the inner workings of the profession, you organized a big student group visit to Unit a few weeks back. How did that happen and why did you think that was a good idea?

In college, I was a part of UG2, which is a student-created/student-led graphic design organization. We frequently took trips out of the state and visited many other design agencies and saw how they did things. As a student, one of the biggest rewards was to be welcomed by these agencies and take part in a tour and discussion about their work practices and culture. It was some of the most relevant exposure I had to the professional world, and it helped tremendously. I always left less terrified of the professional environment and with more inspiration than any classroom project ever gave me.

Since Unit works in a different way than most agencies, I thought these students could benefit from the same experience that I’ve had. While they were in town for the DSVC national student show and conference, I suggested they come by Unit for a short time, and they really enjoyed it. We had a blast too!

So what do you do when you’re not solving problems and building relationships?

At home I think of myself somewhat as an artist. I love to draw custom typography, screen print, make books, and that’s just where it starts. If I can realistically imagine something, I’ll try to make it. Sitting in one spot all day on the computer with my eyes forward and fingers hammering on the keyboard can cause my attention span to shorten (more so than usual); it’s almost like my brain gets a bit of cabin fever. Creating things with my hands is very therapeutic and has become a necessary routine, which exercises the creative side of my brain, giving the analytical side a break for a while.

Fave movie? Are you even a movie fan?

I love any movie about time travel, and although I haven’t seen them all, my favorite time travel movies (so far) are the Back to the Future movies. The tongue-in-cheek science fiction mixed with awesome ‘80s design is unstoppable. Also, Back to the Future predicted the flat screen TV, Xbox Kinect, and video conference calls, though I’m still waiting on hoverboards and time machines.

Why are you a design professional?

I believe designers are very similar to the thinkers of the Renaissance. They were inventors, artists, astronomers, and philosophers, and much like them, designers today must also delve into the realms of psychology, anthropology, and sociology, among other things. We must be fantastic craftsmen, deep, analytical and conceptual thinkers and in whatever medium we must be good artists. To get to combine so many disciplines, form after function, day in and day out, in an effort solve either the world’s biggest problem or one client’s tiny HTML issue, is the most fun and rewarding career I could ever hope to have.

What do you know now that you wish you knew 3 years ago?

Three years ago I hadn’t worked with any clients, as I was an in-house designer, and my thoughts on how client-designer relations should work were hugely misconceived. I wouldn’t say that I have an absolute understanding of this industry and its little quirks, but learning from some of the most practiced designers and business people in the design industry has certainly opened my eyes to how this show should be run.

Ryan’s personal website

So what do you do at Unit Interactive?

I solve problems with design. I also do a lot of front and back-end development and learning and teaching and experimenting, but all of that is in the service of design. I think my role is to be a facilitator for my coworkers to do their best work and to expand the capabilities of Unit as a company.

What you mean by facilitating others to do their best work?

I like to be part of collaborations with very smart and capable people and I’ve long felt that my main benefit to an office setting is to push my coworkers’ (already) good work to be even better. I love to try and find the missing piece to a design that’s almost perfect and I’m almost always available for teaching or bouncing ideas off of. Then there’s the “R.A. Effect,” which around here means that my presence in a room causes technology to start behaving. This is a Real Thing. [Hmm, the Editor finds this one doubtful.]

I attribute some of this self image to my affinity at a young age for the book Wizard’s Hall. The boy wizard in the story isn’t much good at magic himself, but his presence makes everyone else’s magic much stronger.

You mentioned teaching. Does a lot of that go on at Unit?

In a very informal way, yes. We all share new knowledge as we come by it and pass around our expertise as needed. I also school the office daily in ping pong.

How’d you end up working here?

I started designing and building websites back in 2002 as a hobby and decided pretty quickly that it was what I wanted to do to earn my living. In 2006 I got my first job in the industry working for people who were initially afraid when I told them I wouldn’t be building sites with tables. About the same time I stumbled on Andy’s writing and began keeping up with Design View.

Two years later I started my own agency and a year after that my partners decided it wasn’t something they were interested anymore and I was out of a job. Providentially, Unit was hiring and we hooked up. It’s weird to think of it this way, but my company’s failing was one of the best things that has happened to me. Blessings in disguise and all that.

What’s great about your job?

I believe the internet is one of the great human experiments. I think we’re in the middle of a complete societal paradigm shift. No one controls information anymore. People can teach themselves just about anything they want. I didn’t graduate from college, Andy skipped it altogether, and everyone here learned (and are still learning) how to build websites on their own. This is all terribly beautiful and getting paid to participate in it is a great blessing.

The culture at Unit is spot-on as well. We’re encouraged to be well-rounded people instead of slaves to our work. My employers understand that I have a family that comes before work and they don’t treat me like an errant child. If I have something that I need to take care of at home, I take care of it. If I have work to get done, I get it done. That’s the way it should be.

So college isn’t required anymore? Do you think there’s a role for college or a degree to play in the design professions or are these things anachronisms anymore?

Education is required. College is part of the bureaucracy we’ve built around the need for education, but the only relationship between college and educated people is that those seeking education often go to college. This is what makes time spent at a university worthwhile. Not the curriculum, but the aggregation of intelligent minds and experts. However, I’m of the belief that we could be far more effective in how we organize these aggregations than the traditional college setup.

I went to a traditional college (Texas A&M) but I don’t see any intrinsic benefit to graduation. One is no more educated right before receiving their certificate than right after and, since no oaths are required, graduation is nothing more than the final mechanism for the bureaucracy to stamp the student as “approved.” It is sad how reliant much of our society has become on certifications and standardized testing.

We’re lucky in the design industry that those who matter understand that formal education is irrelevant. Ours is not a skill set that can be faked or obfuscated. Anyone seeking work in design must show that they are a capable designer, degree or not. So, college can be very important for an aspiring designer, but only insomuch as they use their time there to make themselves competent.

So what do you do when you’re not working on apps and websites?

I sort of have a hobby addiction. Right now, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training and competition takes up most of my free time – I’m in the gym at least five days a week. I also read everything I can get my hands on. I design and build my own furniture, collect unique table-top games, run, and play disc golf and ping pong. I enjoy the best of music, movies, TV, anime, and food (both cooking and eating). On any given weekend it’s an even chance that my wife and I are driving around Texas or Oklahoma visiting friends and relatives. I’m not much for sitting still.

Being an active member of my church is a huge part of my life as well, but I don’t want to lump that in under “hobbies”.

I hear music coming from your office every day. What are you listening to?

Lately a lot of Mumford & Sons, Del, and I love working to the Tron: Legacy soundtrack. Foo Fighters just released “Wasting Light” that I’m about to pick up and Blue October is supposed to have a new album out later this year, so perhaps I’ll drift a bit back towards rock for a while.

What do you know now that you didn’t know two years ago?

More than I could possibly communicate and far less than I would wish. “The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.” – Benjamin Franklin

R.A.’s personal website

What’s your role at Unit Interactive?

I communicate. I talk with clients, and then communicate their ideas to the world. I talk to Unify customers, and then solve their issues. I write to our blog readers and occasionally write for other publications. And perhaps most importantly: I contribute to the ongoing conversation that is Unit’s role in the web design industry by bringing new ideas and helping all of us Unitards create the best work out there.

So how would you define Unit’s role in the web design industry…and why should an agency have some specific role in its industry?

Every practicing professional contributes to their industry’s perception whether they intend to or not. Agencies – being conglomerates of such professionals – are looked to as even more representative of the design community, so each shop has a choice: stay quiet or join the conversation. This conversation isn’t just amongst our fellow design buddies, though. It involves past, current & potential clients… and every person on the planet, really. That’s why I believe we get so impassioned at Unit when we see unprofessional behavior. We realize that bad experiences affect us all in this small web ecosystem.

How’d you end up at Unit?

I was a rather young art director at a national ad agency before I came to Unit. I was given a lot of autonomy over web projects since I was the only one with HTML/CSS chops, and so I learned the ways of the web fast and mostly uninterrupted. Eventually, the agency began to collapse due to some rather silly business practices, and I knew I needed to move on. Meanwhile, I came across Andy’s article, “On Creativity” on A List Apart and thought “that’s how you run a shop!” I tracked down more info on Mr. Rutledge (we don’t ever call him that, btw) and found that he and Angela ran a shop just 20 minutes away from my very seat! A few emails and a coffee-shop meeting later, I was a bona fide Unitard.

By now some may be thinking, you keep saying this word: Unitard.

Just a silly name we started using for ourselves when I started here (and perhaps before?).

What’s great about your job?

Untangling. I love taking a big tangled mess of an idea and straightening it out. I love facing a problem – or aspect of a problem – that may take a pot of coffee and an entire afternoon. And I love doing things that no one else is doing, or even thinking about. It’s a big wide world of possibilities out there, and Unit has been the perfect platform for me to dive right in.

Is that where Unify came from?

Unify came from wanting my own life to be easier. Of course creating it was actually much more difficult on my life for a while there, but in the end we all have learned a lot and grown tremendously from the effort. [Unify is Nathan’s brainchild and he is the primary driving force behind it here at Unit.]

So what do you do when you’re not designing?

My wife and I hang out and solve the world’s problems (in theory mostly). I get cranky when I don’t run, and I also spend too much time at used book stores. I could just buy the editions I want online, but I love the hunt.

Favorite movie?

If I have to pick, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is my go-to answer.

What are some of your daily website visits?

I mostly use apps like Twitter and my Reader. I let the little squared-off people inside those apps tell me where else to go.

What advice would you offer an aspiring design professional who is looking for the right opportunity and/or environment?

Read and observe everything. Let the bad in with the good, and analyze. Think about how you would improve everyday experiences like an ATM, or DVD kiosk. Right before I graduated college, I visited Frog Design in Austin and got this same advice. It has made all the difference in my career.

From my own experience, I would add a couple more thoughts:

• Dissect how things get made, not just in code, but in the board rooms too. If experiences suck, why do they suck? I’ll give you hint: it very rarely has to do with bad design chops.
• Work on your communication skills (sometimes referred to as “soft skills”). Put yourself in situations where you will have to communicate your ideas.

Nathan’s personal website

What’s your role at Unit Interactive?

I am co-owner of Unit Interactive, which means I wear many hats. Apart from the shared responsibilities of running the business, I am also project manager, information architect, designer, and front-end developer for all projects I take on. I also collaborate, brainstorm and critique with my Unit colleagues.

Why did you decide to start your
own agency?

After working for another web agency, I came to love working for the web and designing solutions for a wide variety of clients, but I recognized pitfalls and bad habits that prevented the agency from reaching its full potential. Andy and I eventually took a leap of faith to realize our dream and start an agency of our own with the principles and standards we believe are paramount for our profession.

What was the scariest part of starting Unit?

I tend to worry about all the “what-ifs” in any big decision and with Unit it was no different. “What if we can’t find clients to hire us? What if we don’t bring in enough money? What if I don’t know enough about running a business? What if there are expenses we aren’t considering?” Fortunately, Andy and I complement each other very well in our business partnership and we have always had the full support of our respective families. I think that made the decision to start Unit much less overwhelming.

You don’t work in the Texas office. How is that for everyone?

Working remotely does have its challenges, but communication is key. We all make an effort to keep in touch with each other in the office and with clients through phone calls, instant messages, email, and various apps we use, like Basecamp.

What’s great about your job?

Creating something that people can use that makes their lives better or simpler in some way. I enjoy both the creativity of designing and the logic behind coding. I also enjoy the variety of people and businesses we work for and learning about the work they do.

Of all the things you do at Unit, what’s your one
favorite part?

Wow, only one thing? I would have to say its spending time in-person with the Unitards, talking about design and where Unit is headed. Of course, that happens a lot less frequently now that I am in St. Louis, but I still get down to Dallas as often as I can.

So what are you doing when you’re not designing and running the business?

My husband and my daughter are my world, so naturally they get most of my attention away from work. We spend our time playing, laughing, eating and singing. I also enjoy being active in our church, cooking and watching my favorite TV shows.

Singing?

I have been singing all my life and even met my husband, Ryan singing in a group in college that travelled, recruiting for the University. I do perform at our church and for the occasional wedding, but I find the majority of my songs these days are a) belted out in the car, b) random outpouring of a song stuck in my head, or c) my own made-up song sung while I’m doing stuff around the house (think cheesy jingle with rhyming verses).

Ha, awesome. So what are your favorite TV shows?

I admit it, I watch way too much TV. I’d say my favorite these days are Survivor, Community, Modern Family, 30 Rock, Amazing Race, Top Chef, and Project Runway. A few all-time favorites are Lost and Pushing Daisies.

Your top 3 fave blogs?

• http://www.swiss-miss.com/
• http://veerle.duoh.com/
• http://www.wisebread.com/

Any parting advice for young designers looking to get hired at a cool agency like Unit?

First of all, learn your craft well. Continue to hone your design and development skills on your own and read up on the latest techniques. Don’t assume you already know everything, but realize and be excited about the fact you have a lot to learn from those of us who’ve done this for a while. Even if you’ve mastered the technical aspects, being a good designer is also about professionalism, so apply at agencies that have high standards and practice them.

• Angela’s Personal Site