Week 4B: Lancaster Studio Visits

Wednesday my class had the opportunity to visit three design agencies in the Lancaster area, Synapse Marketing Solutions, Godfrey B2B Marketing Agency, and the Infantree Brand Experience Studio.

Synapse

First stop was Synapse outside of Lancaster City.  The owner Bobby gave us a little bit of a tour, spending the most amount of time in the design & program room.  We got to see the designers & programmers working on all different projects at the same time, & those passing off the project communicating with each other.

Bobby then ran through a few case studies of user experience and wireframing he did for a few e-commerce site.  I thought this gave a lot of insight to some of the first considerations in building an easy-to-navigate website.

Godfrey

Next we traveled to downtown Lancaster to visit Godfrey, who specializes in business-to-business marketing.  Here we got a full tour of the building, seeing the accounts department downstairs and the design & programming departments upstairs.  After settling into the meeting room, our host Melissa, the director of creative services, shared with us a presentation on B2B & some of Godfrey's clients.  Then MU alum and designer at Godfrey, Erin, came in to share about her journey to Godfrey & what kind of stuff she is doing now.

Infantree

Lastly, just a few blocks over, was the Infantree.  The Infantree was considerably different compared to the other two agencies, particularly much smaller, both in terms of square footage and number of employees.  Our two hosts, owners Ryan & Ryan, took us on a tour.  First stop, & one I thought was the most interesting, was a mood boarding room.  To help get an idea of what kind of brand their clients want, Ryan & Ryan have them go through piles of post cards & magazine clippings with unique style to pin up on the cork board.  From there they work with the client to reduce the number of clippings on the board to get a more narrow view of the future brand.

Upstairs we met the designers/programmers in their shared work room and then up one more flight were Ryan & Ryan's office.  Overall, the entire studio had a very unique, more casual vibe that was very relaxed and inspiring.  I especially enjoyed the pieces of inspiration they had all over the place:  hung on the wall, placed on the shelves, on desks, in the hall.  There was something very nice about that.

One of the big takeaways from the day was that each agency runs differently.  As Erin said at Godfrey, it may take a while to find the agency that fits just right, but you'll find it.  Synapse was a very tight space with a lot of designers & programmers inhabiting the same space.  Godfrey was very organized & spacious, designers in their own cubicle within their own section of the building.  The Infantree was very home-y, a few designers sharing one open space.  Just from seeing the facilities but not really experiencing a day in the agency, I think my best fit would be something like Godfrey.  I need structure & my own space in life.  It allows me to clear my head & concentrate.

Overall, the day was a great opportunity to see design life in the workplace.