Today's speaker was Jason Bouwman, a graduate of the Technical Illustration program at Sheridan College and owner of Compass Creative Studio Inc. You can find him on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @JayBouwman. Jason didn't show us any work until prodded, but he did give us a lot to think about. This is a guy who spends a lot of time thinking about how he can do things better, and that process was really cool to hear about.
Jason came from a blue collar immigrant family of construction workers and welders. He recognized his creative talent but always felt the responsibility that he would one day want to provide for a family. While studying he realized that grades weren't important, but that his portfolio work is what would get him a job coming out. In second year he started cold calling companies and got his first job at Howard Integrated Communications. He was treated well and worked hard but from the start he had the idea to start his own business.
His freelance took off and when he decided to start hiring and grow his business, he asked his clients what they liked most about working with him. It turns out it wasn't his great illustrations or graphic designs (as he had hoped), but the way he asked questions and got to the root of what they were looking for in their designs. He was able to help the client to develop their core idea, so he became an expert in helping his client to align with the market, not just create great designs.
Jason really stressed the idea of find balance in your life, and making sure that the important things got prioritized. As he said, the big rocks have to go in first. Here's what he means.
This is an exert from an interview I found in West of the City Magazine that sums up a lot of what he spoke about in class about his business ideas.
Compass' tagline is “Let's get real”. “We all hate being sold to, lied to. [Marketing] is a real business function. There' a fine line between getting out and promoting yourself and manipulating people or exploiting their fears and emotions just to sell them something, so we've challenged ourselves but we've also moved to challenge our customers to get real.” Bouwman says potential clients sometimes ask if they can be made to look professional. “The first question we ask is, ‘are you professional?' If you're not, then that's what I want to help you solve, and let's put some creativity towards solving that first before I go and craft a message that could be misrepresenting.” Once that's achieved, Bouwman and his crew will craft a brand message that's as appropriate and as reflective to the truth as they can.
These are a couple examples of their great designs for Let's Landscape and NHL hockey player, Mike Fisher's personal website.
