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Michael Cina is the co-founder of WeWorkForThem and YouWorkForThem, along with Michael Young. Cina has experimented with many forms of design and is well known for his typographic work. Cina also spent many years as an online artist and freelancer upholding successful projects like Trueistrue.com that brought a whole new approach to the way designers looked at the medium of web development, interaction, motion, and time. Here, Cina takes some time to share lessons learned with Behance.WeWorkForThem is a great example of taking the necessary time and energy to push an idea forward. As Cina describes it, “The idea started by us wanting to sell typefaces and other design related things. It took us a year to get it up and running but it was well worth the effort I think. We budgeted money and time to work on the site and it slowly started to take shape. It seems today like everyone wants to spend little time for maximum results and things just don't work that way 99% of the time. Anything worth doing is worth doing right and it takes time. I learned this lesson (and still learn it) by developing typefaces. They have to be perfect, contain all the letters, be consistent between weights, etc or the customer will complain. So it's best to do it right the first time.”
“I think the number one thing is to not be scared to take on something more than you may be able to chew. This is a tough one because I normally try not to bite off more than I can chew. So when approaching jobs, I normally think, ‘can this project serve two purposes?’”
I think the number one thing is to not be scared to take on something more than you may be able to chew.
Many creative professionals struggle to nurture ideas beyond conception. As we all know, most ideas disappear without accountability. Cina’s approach is “to develop a lot of ideas and let them sit for a bit.” He goes on to explain that, “some [ideas] will be very strong and require immediate attention… Smaller ideas get done with quickness normally. The ideas that do not stand out may need time to mature and be built up. We have many ideas that require a lot of effort and we can't justify spending tons of time/money on a project that may not take off. If they hang around long enough, you know that there is probably something there.”
“When we did client work, we normally came up with a lot of ideas and would run with the best one we could agree on. From there we would attack the project like madmen and sometimes go overboard. A lot of times we had to back up and redo some things, but normally going too far was better than not going far enough. If we got bigger clients we normally would scale back on the wild ideas. Strangely enough only one client pushed us further (VH1). That was a pleasure to work on.”
Conventional wisdom is, at times, to be defied. Cina and his team started their company during the dot com dive. While everyone was losing their jobs, the team had conviction. He even remembers the warning signs that were discouraging, but he remembers that “there was something deep down that said we would be okay.”
Some ideas from Michael Cina for the broader creative professional community:
More Links:
WeWorkForThem
YouWorkForThem
TrueIsTrue.com (Cina)
DesignGraphik.com (Young)
“I think the number one thing is to not be scared to take on something more than you may be able to chew. This is a tough one because I normally try not to bite off more than I can chew. So when approaching jobs, I normally think, ‘can this project serve two purposes?’”
I think the number one thing is to not be scared to take on something more than you may be able to chew.
Many creative professionals struggle to nurture ideas beyond conception. As we all know, most ideas disappear without accountability. Cina’s approach is “to develop a lot of ideas and let them sit for a bit.” He goes on to explain that, “some [ideas] will be very strong and require immediate attention… Smaller ideas get done with quickness normally. The ideas that do not stand out may need time to mature and be built up. We have many ideas that require a lot of effort and we can't justify spending tons of time/money on a project that may not take off. If they hang around long enough, you know that there is probably something there.”
“When we did client work, we normally came up with a lot of ideas and would run with the best one we could agree on. From there we would attack the project like madmen and sometimes go overboard. A lot of times we had to back up and redo some things, but normally going too far was better than not going far enough. If we got bigger clients we normally would scale back on the wild ideas. Strangely enough only one client pushed us further (VH1). That was a pleasure to work on.”
Conventional wisdom is, at times, to be defied. Cina and his team started their company during the dot com dive. While everyone was losing their jobs, the team had conviction. He even remembers the warning signs that were discouraging, but he remembers that “there was something deep down that said we would be okay.”
Some ideas from Michael Cina for the broader creative professional community:
- Work on bigger projects slowly and with open eyes.
- Keep an open mind. Don't shoot down the dumb ideas.
- Complete jobs.
- Never look back.
- Loose your ego.
- Kill ‘em with kindness
More Links:
WeWorkForThem
YouWorkForThem
TrueIsTrue.com (Cina)
DesignGraphik.com (Young)
