Let's see what you could have talked about...

I could tell you about Wednesday. I could tell you that I had a very productive day, that I got a lot done, and that I fixed some CSS problems that I was having (thanks John). I could also talk about Thursday morning, but I'd much prefer to talk about the afternoon. The Industrial Liaison Meeting.

After what seemed like an hour of riding along hideously neglected roads and steep hills that almost put Mount Everest to shame we finally got there. I'd previously been told that The Design Mechanics worked from a porta-cabin which naturally got me thinking about what kind of company we were visiting. It's impossible to not gain a first impression from a first glance at the outside of a company, but it became apparent very quickly that the fact that The Design Mechanics were being run from a porta-cabin meant nothing. To put it into an effective analogy, I'd say what TDM are doing are starting a revolution from a matchbox. Yeah, a revolution.

After we'd walked through the doors and got treated to our first sight of a design studio in use, we went through to the office with Dave Pannell (Creative Director) and Paul Greenhalgh (Lead Designer) to have a little chat. Dave proceeded to tell us about his and Stuart's philosophy behind The Design Mechanics, which as far as I could tell boiled down to one thing: to remove the nonsense that usually surrounds a design studio. Instead of having lots of hidden charges and umming and ahhing about prices, they've come up with a fixed price list that they stick to for all their products. And they certainly are very cheap. As Dave explained though, cheap at TDM doesn't result in a loss of quality, as we cottoned on to when he showed us some of TDM's past work.

Basically, their process works like this: client gets in touch with TDM, and they send out a representative to conduct an interview, which is then passed onto the designer so that they can create the designs. It's as simple as that really. Listening to Dave signified to me how passionate he is about the company he has created, as he's not just come up with yet another design agency, he's come up with something that no one else is doing in the industry. It was hard not to become drawn into Dave's passionate musings, but I could see they made absolute sense. Clearly it was working, as Dave also said that he's gone from 14ish steady clients working before to 200+ working with TDM. It's unbelievable really.

When we went outside to go have a chat with the designers I was amazed how nonchalant the designer I was talking to seemed. He was six months out of university, and here he was creating a business card in an hour and knocking out good quality corporate identities as easy as a fast food joint knocks out food. It was quite unbelievable in that respect, and it taught me a lot about the direction that I need to be taking myself in. When it comes to the real world, you can't sit around pondering about whether that line should be 0.5pt or 1pt, you've just got to do it. But like Dave also said, "college/university is the time to experiment with ideas".

And I'm thankful for that. For the next two years I can experiment with ideas, and I've got plenty of time to learn about myself and grow into a fully-fledged designer. As much as we're always being told by Steve that we need to do things quicker, we're also here to sometimes just take a step back and really look at ourselves. Because if we don't, they'll just be someone else to take your place at that interview in two years time.

If there's one more thing the trip gave to me, it was hunger. Hunger to do something worthwhile. Or more accurately, a massive, beating hunger to become the best designer I can possibly be.