To be honest, I don’t feel stuck very often. I tend to think through ‘mindless’ designing or sketching; just exploring as wide a spectrum of ideas or scenarios as possible, without judgment. Then, I stop to evaluate or discuss what I’ve done, either with colleagues or even the client. That’s the basis of our ‘Exploration phase’. If an idea isn’t quite there yet, it usually just means we need more time to explore further.

When we’re working on a particularly challenging project, I find myself thinking about it while doing mundane things like cooking, showering, or playing with my son. Sometimes, I’ll have a breakthrough (or at least think I have!), and I’ll email myself a bunch of loose words or thoughts to pick up later when I’m back at my computer.

Not as much as you might expect. In fact, working with people who have never engaged with designers before—like someone setting up a new business—has shaped my process far more. It’s taught me to simplify the way I talk about design so that anyone can understand and engage with it.
Hopefully, that still comes across whilst reflecting the experience and expertise I’ve built over the years.

It depends on the project, but generally, a small budget often means a quick turnaround, almost like a sprint. That means we do not have the luxury of exploring every possibility or refining a single idea endlessly.

Design is not a science, so there is no single right answer to any problem. More time does not guarantee a better solution, but it definitely increases the chances of finding one.

When timelines are tight, experience plays a key role. Over the years, I have found that I can get to a high-quality solution much faster than I could when I was starting out.

Discussing ideas with other people, whether they are creatives or not, can also help accelerate critical thinking, something that usually only time allows.

Here are some books that shaped me early on:

• The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher. It is exactly what the title suggests.
• Sagmeister by Stefan Sagmeister (the one with the German Shepherd on the cover). A great personal insight into the mind and path of an incredible creative. I loved the diary entries spread throughout.
• Studio Culture:The Secret Life of the Graphic Design Studio Edited by Tony Brook and Adrian Shaughnessy. I have always been curious about how studios are run, and I still am.
• Tellmewhy by KarlssonWilker. For the same reason as the above.
• Works That Work magazine by Peter Bilak and Typotheque. Published between 2013 and 2018, this was an incredible collection of in-depth essays and stories about how creative ideas impact everyday life.

I included Critica because, during any project, we constantly create images that get lost forever. This happens either through conscious design routes or tests that do not get developed or chosen, or by chance, when the display freezes or the software glitches.

I had a habit of collecting screenshots of these moments and wanted a place to display them. That is how Critica was born. However, between us, I rarely update that page anymore. It was more of a personal project, and now that we collaborate with so many other creatives, it is harder to collect those images. That said, I still get a buzz from looking back at old screenshots.

As we all know it’s getting easier and easier to do everything in our little ‘magic rectangle’ screen. Running multiple projects with tight turnarounds makes it harder to step away, but we try whenever possible.

If I am stuck or need to quickly mock something up, such as a spread layout or slide deck structure, I still turn to pen and paper. In fact, I include some of these sketches at the start of every project case study on our website. These are real sketches made during the design process.

I also feel that if we’re designing an object that will live in the physical world (a book, report or wayfinding system) we need to see how they would look and feel in our hands, table, bookshelf, wall, because that is how and where real people will interact with them. Every time we have skipped test prints before sending something off to production, we have regretted it.

I love to think we don’t have a visual language, so I hate when people say, “I love your style” or “I can see it’s a CRONICA project!”. For me, the visual language of a project should come from the challenge itself, including the context, the audience, and the organisation, rather than from my personal style or that of my collaborators. That said, we all have a visual culture shaped by our experiences and the things we consume. So, in that sense, I accept that whatever we create is inevitably a reflection of that.

So no, I don’t really want to stay true to my visual language. I want to challenge it at every opportunity I have. That’s how we grow and evolve as creatives.