DesignGood is an online community and branding studio that aims to harness the power of creativity and design to inspire people, elevate brands and to build businesses. Their mission is to encourage and inspire creatives to design more meaning into work, and life, by engaging with one another. In addition to sharing weekly features about creatives who are using their talents to give back in some way, DesignGood Studio also creates design and branding work for socially conscious companies looking to build their brands.
7 Questions with Kristin Moses, Founder and Creative Director of DesignGood and DesignGood Studio
1. How do you reset to be creative?
Making time to create and working on projects that I enjoy is how I reset. When you run a creative business, so much of your time is spent doing work for others – not to mention the day-to-day operational functions that come with running a business. I enjoy everything that comes with being a business owner, but as a creative entrepreneur, it’s easy to forget to do the very things for your own business that you advise clients to do for theirs. Creating things that are meaningful is a major source of creativity for me as well. We do that with our DesignGood community site, and with side projects we embark on. Doing the things that I really love doing allows me to better serve our community and our clients.
2. What motivates you?
People, design, and entrepreneurship – looks like I’m in the right line of work! I have always had a strong desire to help people, and more specifically use design to help people start businesses. I’ve been a designer for 17 years, and a creative agency owner for 12 years. A couple years ago I did a major evaluation of my life, my work, and my career. Everything had gotten monotonous and I couldn’t bare the thought of continuing my business as it stood. After much soul searching and lots of Oprah watching, the ideas for DesignGood (our community) and DesignGood Studio were conceived. Knowing that we are helping to launch socially conscious brands and promote creatives that are changing the world is pure motivation. I'm excited about where we are headed.
3. What is the biggest challenge you face?
Our main challenge is connecting the online community with our studio. We’re so proud of the DesignGood platform, a website that shares the stories of creative and entrepreneurs who are engaging in socially conscious business ventures and projects. We do work for those types of businesses and projects with our design studio, but it can be difficult to easily help our readers and followers connect the online platform with a studio that was built on 17 years of design experience. It’s something we’re working on now, and are always looking to improve in the future.
4. How do you stay on top of the cutting edge?
We believe that sometimes staying on top the cutting edge isn't as important as listening to your audience, and creating a solution that’s right for them. We’re very good at effectively responding to our online community and clients' needs for both DesignGood and DesignGood Studio. Staying adaptable is more important than staying on top of every trend. Trends and technologies come and go, but what remains are basic human and business principles. At the end of the day the connections you make and build are what ultimately gets you the furthest.
5. What is your favorite way to interact with viewers of your site?
Interacting with readers and followers is one of our favorite things. We try to have fun, and do things like host giveaways and inspire each other with beautiful imagery across all of our social media platforms. My favorite thing is probably our Create and Contribute stickers. When you sign-up for our mailing list, we send DesignGood stickers with handwritten notes – which I still write and mail. The requests are always so sweet and supportive, and there is something nice about communicating on a human level.
We send the stickers all over the globe, and we ask everyone to share the stickers with our #StickForGood hashtag. It makes us happy see the enthusiasm of people when they feel connected to our tribe.
6. Are there any adjacent industries outside your own that you actively source for inspiration?
I take a lot of inspiration from well-designed spaces. Interior design, architecture – all of that is so fascinating to me because of the combination and use of materials, colors, and textures. The possibilities are endless, so when a space perfectly comes together it’s almost magical.
7. Where do you see the future of blogs heading?
Online platforms hold so much power because they are niche, focused communities that serve as places for people to visit for inspiration, connection, and information. This is a huge benefit for readers and followers, but also for advertisers who can find and target their communities more efficiently than ever before. At DesignGood, we don’t see ourselves as a blog – we’re more of an online community and an editorial platform. Personal blogs and bloggers will live on, but we see the future as being more about editorial sites and online experiences. Some of this is due to the fact that there’s been a big shift away from traditional marketing efforts and there will continue to be.
Looking for to learn more? DesignGood Studio helps brands accomplish their goals through partnerships that will help them to learn and grow. You can also follow the DesignGood community on their website, and on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
References: designgood
