coexist

You really can’t beat a Midwest Indian Summer Weekend. The icing on the cake is the opportunity to fire up the Stella for a rare romp among the Fall foliage without the usual compliment of deep freeze winter gear.

A relaxing ride quickly turns into routine errands, but it’s amazing how much more enjoyable a Target run is when you know that you get to take the long way home with two fists in the wind – scooter style.

Every week is progress – always moving forward. This week, so far, we’ve defined a newer and more granular version of our process, partnered with a business consultant that we feel will give us some needed guidance, interviewed several interesting people, figured out the world of widgets, starting working with an exciting new Portland-based animation partner, figured out how to do things on Facebook that “couldn’t be done” and have done several things to make our space a little homier.

Sometimes when there’s so much to do it’s overwhelming, it’s nice to look back at what’s already done. All I see when I back up is progress.

Streaming a facebook connected CNN live broadcast of a Presidential inauguration for the first African-American President through the internet all captured with the camera in an Iphone. Just eight years ago this was a dream. It truly is a new day.

Last week we had a visit from The Ohio State University’s Department of Industrial, Interior, and Visual Communication Design.

The Design 514 “Graphic Production” course has been attending various businesses related to the design industry for the past 9 weeks, with a focus on the world of print design. Clearly, the world of design is much larger than the printed page.

Coexist partners Christian + Dan took it upon themselves to provide a glimpse of the interactive design world from a production perspective—what exactly goes into all that we do?

Of course, all of this couldn’t be crammed into a 2 hour visit—nevertheless, hopefully we were able to spark interest in the minds of the student design community.

How do you follow the hilarity of a feverishly developed cookie heist? With a heart-wrenching story of passion, of course!

When I heard Coexist was seeking out interns last year, I immediately got excited. I was definitely ready for an internship, and based on their web site I was pretty sure that they were a good match for yours truly. Within my first week aboard, I was invited to jump in and explore design concepts and communicate with clients – not your typical design internship responsibilities.

Going on coffee runs, taking out the trash, dealing with paper work, and production madness? Pfft – not at Coexist. Well, I do take the trash out every now and then, but not because I’m the intern – it’s because full trash cans make me uncomfortable. I’ll save that story for another blog post.

My point is, Coexist does more than put their interns to work – they foster and cultivate designers into well rounded hip-cats, all without ever throwing on a suit. We work hard, but it doesn’t feel like work – we love what we do.

I never imagined my creative director coming up to me in the middle of the day to play a video game, but it happened last week. It’s these little casual occurrences that make Coexist a blast to work at, whether a remote controlled helicopter is flying over your desk or you celebrate a weekly holiday known as “Taco Wednesdays.” I’m glad I found the world’s first microagency, as they’ve been the perfect contemporary to my design education.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe the trash needs taken out.

It all started out innocently enough, with me planning to bring my dog Vito into the office. Little did I know that Andy was also bringing his new puppy Lucy for the day. Vito and Lucy hadn’t met previously, and it goes without saying that they aren’t your typical puppy couple. Once Vito hit the door, he knew something was up. Lunging at him from under Ben’s desk was a small dog like object with razor sharp teeth, which became instantly attached to Vito’s ear.

Realizing what had just happened Vito quickly readied for attack. The two had it out for a while before Vito eventually used his size to overwhelm his feisty puggley foe. After some rest the two were at it again, and throughout the day provided us with moments of joy, cuteness, entertainment, and sheer terror as Vito would begin to jump up on Lucy’s five pound frame. It was a good experience for all and while I wouldn’t suggest bringing your pets to work every day, it’s a nice escape from a typical Tuesday.

We just lost a senior designer to the draw of the big city and big opportunities so it seems an appropriate time to reflect back on the past several months of working remotely.

For some background, Tyfo worked with us for a year before the first stage of his eventual and graceful exit of Coexist. He’s a top-notch multi-disciplinary designer and, of equal importance, a cultural force to be reckoned with. We had seen Tyfo’s (and our) friends, one by one, head for NYC and drop in with positive stories of exciting opportunities and, for lack of a more interesting way to put it, fun stuff. It wasn’t a surprise that one year into his career here, Tyfo let us know he was moving to the city but still wanted to be a part of our group. This was an easy decision – so we spent the next eight or so months working with Tyfo as a remote employee.

We kitted him out with a new MacBook Pro, sent him on his way and, right away, started booking flights to bring him back once a month so he could stay connected to the group and facilitate collaboration with us and our clients. For the first few months, it was brilliant. With a little extra effort on everyone’s part and tools like iChat, Adobe Connect, etc. – we were able to loop him into key meetings and communicate pretty fluidly on a day-to-day basis. Actually – I think I may have communicated more and more thoughtfully with Tyfo for a while because of the instant nature of iChat.

Tyfo had a great attitude throughout the experiment and worked really hard. He was still contributing is a big way to our creative product and it was exciting to have him back once a month. It stirred up the team and, generally, added another dimension to our studio.

It wasn’t all rosey. What we hadn’t considered was that a remote employee misses: brainstorms, spontaneous cultural events, mentoring younger designers, honing their presentation skills and the occasional long night that binds individuals into a team.

Overall – it was a positive experience and I would consider a remote employee again – realizing that even a highly-talented individual and great cultural fit that is growing within the company, in a remote environment and over time, would contribute more on the level of a top-notch freelancer.