Design x Dana Haddad
Senior Art Director at C Space
Illustration by Bonnie Kate Wolf
Interview conducted by Michelle Berois on June 19, 2020.
Tell us a little about yourself and what you do.
I’m Dana, a designer / art director in Providence, Rhode Island, but I actually work in Boston, Massachusetts. I went to school for graphic design. I didn’t even know advertising was a thing until I graduated and was applying for jobs. I bounce back and forth between those two worlds. My full time job is in advertising and research, but I also run my own freelance studio on the side, where I combine fine art and graphic design. It allows me to be a bit more creative and playful than the work I do at my day job.
Was there a specific moment when you knew that you wanted to be a designer?
In high school, I wanted to be a landscape architect but also a lawyer. Then in my senior year, I had to take an elective, so I took a computer art class. We learned basic Photoshop, and we had to restore an old photo that was ripped or faded for our final project. I remember that ability to manipulate and restore an image being the coolest thing ever.
I don’t think there was one moment that sparked it, but there were a lot of reaffirming moments where I saw the power of what it could actually do, how it can communicate messaging, enlighten people and influence behavior. So there wasn’t one particular moment, but I would probably say it was taking that really random elective senior year.
Where did you land after you finished college?
I think my first job was a freelance gig at this small advertising agency in southern Connecticut called Catapult. It was about a two-hour commute each way, which was rough. I remember not loving it and thinking that your first job is not your last job, but I also understood that your first job sets up who you’ll be connected to in the industry and who you’re going to learn from. So it’s a balance of understanding that it’s not your last job and making sure that it’s work you really want to do. It was a great experience to start there because it helped me understand how to be a professional and that the work was not what I was interested in.
What do you feel is a designer’s role right now in light of everything that is going on in the world?
One of the reasons I love design is how powerful it can be in changing behavior.
“One of the reasons I love design is how powerful it can be in changing behavior. That is the purpose of a designer.”
That is the purpose of a designer—to be an agent of change, to use our skills and talents to effectively communicate to people in a way that makes your audience want to engage with it. So if that’s our goal, but we’re focused on sharing resources and promoting information and facts, that’s what motivates me as a designer especially during these times.
You’ve worked at various ad agencies on digital, print and environmental campaigns. Can you share what has been some of your favorite work that you’ve done, and why?
I love branding work. Creating an identity for a company, an organization, or a person is really fun for me. I always say branding for yourself is the hardest thing to do, but doing it for somebody else is really interesting.
I had the opportunity to brand a small barber shop that was opening in Providence. What really attracted me to the project was that he wanted to be a true barber shop, which was more of a community space, a place where people culminated and news was shared. It really came out of this idea that the guy used to go to all these barber shops where all they did was talk about women and sports. He wanted a place where they could talk about things like art and culture. So it wasn’t even the project itself, but the why behind it, that was really inspiring to me.
A lot of his drive for what he wanted the face of the shop to be also drove a lot of our creative decisions. For me, it’s always the person I’m working with, and not necessarily the project itself, that drives me. Every project has the potential to be great. So much of that starts with your relationship with the client and who they are, what they want to do.
“For me, it’s always the person I’m working with, and not necessarily the project itself, that drives me.”
My background is in print design, but moving into advertising opened up this whole new world of video for me. Having to direct videographers and photographers on commercial shoots was a brand new skill set that I had to learn on my own. Working on projects where you’re concepting a video, breaking it down frame by frame and making sure you have a clear and direct message in a specific amount of time is a really fun challenge.
You went to school for graphic design, but now you’re a Senior Art Director. Can you talk about what that journey was like for you?
I’ll start by saying that I think titles are a wankfest. Pardon my French. I refer to myself as a designer. I think I’m a graphic designer, but I recognize that “Art Director” sounds more respectable. In the advertising world, there are various creative titles one can have. In the design community, you really just refer to yourself as a “designer” or “creative,” and that’s what you do. Your skillset is vast and you have a wide range of knowledge. Regardless of what the project needs, you can problem solve for it, figure things out, or facilitate the relationships you need if you don’t have those skillsets yourself.
In advertising, there are very clear distinctions between an art director and a designer. The reason I had switched to art direction is because my schooling was very much about the concepts, or the starting seed of an idea. If I was designing a poster or a book or an identity, it was all about the idea.
So when I moved into advertising as a designer, I started running up against this wall of receiving other people’s ideas and bringing them to life. Don’t get me wrong—there’s still a ton of creativity in that, and there needs to be a lot of strategy behind the decisions you make. But I realized that I really wanted to be in those upfront conversations that influenced what the output was.
About three or four years into designing at an agency I switched onto the art direction path, which meant I was way more client-facing and involved much earlier on in the process. I’m now involved in a lot more interpreting and influencing business strategy for a client, not just bringing the strategy to life visually.
Is that the type of work you are doing now at C Space? What kind of projects are you working on now?
C Space is an interesting opportunity for me, having been in advertising for seven years. They’re actually a research company, first and foremost, and that piqued my interest because all of the creative decisions that I make are always rooted in strategy or have a functional decision behind them. It’s not just making something pretty to make something pretty. When I heard “research,” it was really interesting because what we actually do is create research documentaries about people that clients then buy from us so they can better understand their customer.
I split my time now at work between traditional advertising and creating these ethnographies. It’s essentially getting to travel, meet people, try to understand them, and tell their story in five minutes or so. Then we share it with our clients and say, “Don’t forget that these are the people that you are actually in business for and here’s what they actually care about.”
We get to show them what people actually want out of their product in a way that is much more human than sending a 300-page research presentation.
So that’s half of my time at C Space. The other half is more traditional design and advertising. I’m currently working on a branding project for a large online learning company, which is actually really interesting, considering the pandemic that we’re in and everybody being remote.
Working in that space and rebranding the company has been fun. So many companies and schools are now pivoting online and trying to figure out who they are in that space. But this is a company that was made for this, so they really get to thrive.
In light of the pandemic and how that is changing the way we do things, how do you see that affecting design?
I think we are blessed because we can do our job anywhere. We’re not tethered to an office or a specific location. I know people who have been working remotely for years. Lifestyle-wise, it’s probably not going to be that different if that’s what you’re already set up to do.
It could potentially help designers who are stuck in a very traditional nine-to-five, where their bosses don’t understand that creativity happens at any hour of the day. It could give creatives a much more flexible schedule at companies that probably weren’t open to that before all of this.
What do you see as some of the struggles or challenges that designers face right now?
I think there’s a fear of the potential to lose this communal aspect of design. That’s part of the reason why I love being a creative—I like to understand people, and that means being with them, talking with them and understanding them. While Zoom and all these video conferences have become the norm now, which I think is a positive thing, it’s never going to be the same as in-person human connection.
We’re going to have to make sure that there’s space for that, even if it is some sort of social distancing kind of interaction, so that those conversations can still happen in person because they are much more effective and so much more impactful. Without it, we’re just designing in a black hole, void of any authenticity.
Are there any specific topics within the design industry right now that are really interesting to you?
I’m more aware than ever of the lack of diverse representation in this industry, and while my wake-up call is embarrassingly late, it’s really pushed me to fix it however I can. That means diversifying where I’m looking for inspiration, where I turn to resources, who I can recommend for hire. Our industry is built around communicating and celebrating people, and we can’t do it if our entire team has the same experiences. There is a lot of movement right now, with the Type Directors Club closing and with AIGA leadership speaking out.
I’m really hopeful that that means we’re creating new spaces for new voices and organizations that people can turn to, which will be great.
Especially now with the Black Lives Movement, what do you feel are some of the things designers can do to propel that movement or help amplify the voices of people of color?
I think the first thing is to take a look at where you find inspiration. Are all the designers you know white? Do you only read articles from an AIGA-type organization that doesn’t necessarily promote diversity as much as it says it does?
If you’re in a position to hire, you need to make sure that the pool that you’re pulling from is giving you a diverse selection of candidates. Maybe you need to post your job opening beyond LinkedIn, Monster.com and Indeed.
I think it is also really important to use your social media platforms to share the work of creatives who are Black or POC.
Are there any design mentors or leaders who helped influence you on your journey?
I sadly haven’t had a true mentor since college. He was a professor of mine who helped push me, but in a way that felt very nurturing. He was incredibly soft spoken, and yet such an incredibly clear communicator. To this day, if I ever find myself getting worked up in a meeting, I ask myself how my professor would handle a situation like this, and it changes my behavior.
What advice would you give to new or aspiring designers?
It’s important to build your own creative community so you can have mentors and people who constantly inspire you. Surrounding yourself with people who do work that you want to be doing is a great motivator, without feeling like it’s a competition.
“It’s important to build your own creative community so you can have mentors and people who constantly inspire you.”
Also, always maintain a student-of-life mentality. Being a creative is scary because we never really know where our inspiration comes from, or if we’re guaranteed to have it tomorrow, so constantly building a toolkit of resources and inspiration means you’re less likely to fall into a creative rut.
Rapid Fire Questions:
What is your favorite thing to do in your free time?
Oh god, I’m not a rapid fire thinker. Immediately my head responds to your question with more questions: How much free time do I have? What season are we talking?
I love reading. I know that’s a boring answer and everyone probably says it, but I love reading.
What are you reading right now? Do you have any favorite books?
My reading list is all over the place, and I like that. My favorite book from last year is called French Exit. It’s about a wealthy older woman whose husband passes away, leaving her no money, so she’s forced to leave New York and take a cruise ship to Paris, where she can stay in her friend’s pied-à-terre for free. Along the way, her dead husband is reincarnated into her cat. I can’t remember who wrote it, but it’s hysterical.
John Hodgman has a couple of memoirs, Vacationland and Medallion Status, which are hysterical, too.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is so beautifully written and has an incredible storyline.
Any favorite podcasts?
I go back and forth on podcasts. I want to be the person who listens to podcasts constantly. I used to when I was commuting to Boston but now I really only listen to The Daily, which is The New York Times’ morning news podcast.
Oh, Dr. Death was great too. It’s a true story about this doctor in Texas who butchered so many surgeries and was eventually convicted of so much malpractice after getting away with it for years.
