We recently caught up with independent designer Henry Slaughter (IDEA Grad 2013), for a grad spotlight on life after graduating from IDEA School of Design. Portraits (shown above) by Lauren Zbarsky.

Check out this grad spotlight!

What prompted you to start your own private Slack channel and who is in it?

Projects seem to move so quickly, that email just doesn’t always suffice. If the recipient’s haptics or sounds are turned off, they won’t receive the notification at all, which further slows things down. Emails are traditionally written in long-form style which doesn’t lend itself well to quick question-asking and comment-making. Tyler Quarles introduced me to the app in 2016 and I haven’t looked back.

I started my own Slack channel in 2017 originally for dialogue with clients but quickly learned it was better for internal chatter, through freelancers I brought on or people I shared the work with. Currently, I’ve got two designers (Max Littledale and Ata Ojani), two developers (one local and one in Pakistan), one ongoing client, and one brilliant copywriter. It’s awesome!

You work with a writer and a web developer. Please share with our readers the importance of filling in the gaps with other talent.

As a designer, you begin to realize that the design cannot be produced (or started) without the content being shared. And as the years and projects go by, you begin to notice which words pair, sound, and look better within the design. As an independent, being resourceful is a huge part of the job but sometimes, it serves the project and timeline to hire in outside help from a complementary skillset like copywriting, animation, web development, and beyond.

I am continuously pursuing the development of my peripheral skills like project quoting, business development, project management, however, I will likely never be as good at writing or animation as some of the copywriters and designers I work with. Their work makes my work look better and gets us closer to the finish line. I find that my time is best used in offering the most thoughtful, attractive, and original design, so I focus on that.

If I keep an updated, detail-oriented portfolio, I can begin to increase my prices to include enough margin to cover the cost of copywriters or animators. If the budget doesn’t allow for outside help, I can sell the service of one of these people to the client and put them both in touch to find a budget together. In most cases, once they see the work, they realize the importance of writing, web development, animation, and any other outside service.

How did you meet Max Littledale (IDEA Grad 2018), Nicole Shewchuk (IDEA Grad 2020), and Ata Ojani (IDEA Grad 2020)

I met Max (although he won’t remember this) at his grad show, in 2018, which was absolutely packed. He was being pulled in a few different directions, but I managed to grab a business card which I found in the bottom of my desk two years later. He’s been awesome to have coming in and out on some select projects.

I met Nicole in the Monday Creative office last summer when she began working on the lululemon campaign projects with me. She got tossed into the deep end and managed to do an absolutely fine job. She’s since taken over all the lululemon design projects that come into the Monday Creative project queue.

Nicole subsequently introduced me to her talented classmates, Courtney Lamb and Ata Ojani, via email. I’ve never met either in real life but Ata has supported me with a handful of small design and Squarespace projects.

IDEA School of Design is known for its collaborative “family” extending between cohorts from different years. Please share with our readers the importance of networking.

As I’ve witnessed through the years, some of the most enjoyable projects have come from the most unthinkable places. You never know where a recommendation might come from. Especially in places like Instagram or online that you don’t think a particular person might notice (if they’re not active on social, or otherwise).

I’ve also been surprised at how many opportunities to hire or collaborate with other IDEA School of Design grads for different projects have arisen. Also, the strength of networking goes beyond those immediate contacts you know – Alex Bakker (IDEA Grad 2014) introduced me (in 2014) to Alan Chao, a developer that he worked with at Carter Hales who’s been doing dev work on all my website projects since then.

Alan has been a huge part of my personal growth and aptitude within UI and UX design, and become someone I can trust and rely on when quoting on web work. Without Alan, who knows how hard it would’ve been to find a good, hard-working developer with a shared vision.

Do you have any side projects going on?

I support my good friend Sean’s small (plant shop) business in Victoria called Back in Five with pro-bono branding and design support. I would consider this a side project because it consistently gets shoved to the end of my to-do list (sorry Sean!) and it has brought me a great portfolio piece and a talking point among many clients. It’s also a side project for Sean, himself because he works as a landscape architect five days a week.

I’ve been surprised at the sporadic but positive response for it from the most unlikely places. Together, our evenings are sometimes spent building marketing plans and Instagram stories for product features and launches. It’s been fun designing for social media’s ever-evolving challenges and learning more about what works in marketing for his particular demographic.

Although the design challenge has subtly evolved, it’s been a great tool for learning about marketing online and trying to capture sales and drive traffic. The benefit of the portfolio piece developing out of all this was the icing on the cake.

What is your number one idea generation strategy?

I need to be able to visualize the desired feeling of a project before I begin. I don’t typically have a confident approach to a project until I’ve seen a handful of finished pieces to understand where the solution might land or what would feel best.

Type and colour are so immensely emotive within the entire brand expression and play such a huge role in the outcome and who it’s intended for. I will always have a sketchbook handy while doing these pulse-checks online so I can sketch things out as ideas pop into my mind. I’ll typically write down notes with rudimentary sketches to stress-test the looser, high-level concept before jumping into Adobe.

What is the best advice you've learned from a mentor, teacher, or fellow student?

Recently, I’ve been seeking advice on how to approach pricing for different scenarios and learning about value-based pricing (vs. tracking hours and billing monthly, for example). I’ve also been caught constantly adding work items to my plate in an effort to keep myself as busy as possible.

One of my mentors reminded me that it’s smart to work on my business, and not always in my business. This is a common sentiment, but his reminder came at a time when I caught myself keeping too busy with client projects, and not taking time to re-establish new processes, improve my own quote and pitch decks, or create promotional materials for Instagram and my website.

We tend to get caught up in the pixels when we sometimes need to step away, rebuild or realign our business, to be able to take it to the next level.

Further, I think it’s really important to always seek out contacts that have excellent or complementary experience (that are generous with their time) to help bounce ideas or offer guidance in-the-moment (or advice).

We can’t always just rely on ourselves, and we aren’t always right, either. Seek these people out, appreciate them and thank them, and then go on to offer your own help to someone else that might need your opinion or expertise.

Describe a design fail that you learned from?

Overall, it’s important to realize there’s no one-approach-fits-all for various client work. I used to stick to a rigid playbook, and have since found myself achieving better, fluid results from going off-script, and reacting to the situation (while following a phased working process).

Some clients will need more hand-holding, some will place more emphasis on the exact colour palette or logo shape. It’s good to adapt, notice their particular needs, and serve the client with the goal of reaching the finish line in the quickest, most positive way.

With this being said, you won’t be very good at adapting and serving a client’s evolving needs if you carry around an ego, or an idea that you are always “right”. The act of design is a service, and although I have huge confidence in myself, I’m always happy to find a compromise wherever possible. After all, we both want to launch something awesome in the shortest amount of time, so let’s work together, positively, to make some magic.

What advice would you give to anyone considering applying to the Bachelor of Design at IDEA School of Design?

Don’t ever think that you can’t design, or you can’t learn to design, or your current skillset can’t evolve. I was my own worst enemy – I had a hard time believing I could learn the software and develop visual identities that I studied in my early years, let alone make a living out of it. Anything is possible. And anything worth achieving will take time and persistence. However, the harder the goal, the greater the reward. 

What advice would you give to IDEA School of Design students regarding summer internships, practicums, portfolios, and career advice?

Do anything and everything you can to stay involved. Also, you can do more than you think you can. There may only be 24 hours in a day, but you can create more hours in the day if you want something bad enough. I’ve done hundreds of pro-bono or cheap work, just to learn by doing.

I’m now able to draw on all those past experiences for interpersonal skills, idea-generating skills, design and technical skills, typography and font knowledge, production tasks, and beyond. Don’t force yourself into burnout, but the more your practice, the greater your skills will become, and ultimately your confidence in continuing to develop.

Also, don’t be discouraged if you haven’t been selected or given an opportunity now, in this very moment — we’re all on different paths and timelines so don’t compare yourself to your colleague.

Use the frustration or shortcoming as fuel to your fire, and prove to yourself by putting in 2x as much effort going forward. It may seem like no one is watching, but your hard work will never go unnoticed or unrewarded. 

Do you still maintain a neatly organized desktop and is “logo.jpg” still a turn-off? 😉

My desktop and folder structure improvement has begun to plateau but I do still look for ways to improve organization tactics. File management is very important since there is constant overlap between projects. I actually learned the importance and nuance in folder structure labeling at my job in Australia, and have implemented it on my own hard drive ever since. I haven’t been unable to find a file in years!

And yes, I don’t believe logos need to be exported as JPGs - they’re crunchy and inflexible for different uses. I export logos in all brand colours as transparent PNGs and then I’ll create JPGs of a logo for an explicit scenario like a social media profile picture. 

I suppose not much has changed there!

Lastly, where do you see yourself in the next few years, where can people follow you, and is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?

I put a lot of effort into documenting and sharing my design work on Instagram (@henryslaughter) and my website (henryslaughter.ca). Through my posts, I try to point out the nuances within the projects themselves, where the challenges lay and why I chose a particular solution.

Although my social platform is a place to view the finished work, it’s also an opportunity to share more insight, start a conversation or educate someone else that’s also involved in and learning about branding or design. I’m forever a student of the field and always seeking to improve and learn more, so I welcome all feedback.

In the next few years, I’d love to have a handful of ongoing individuals supporting and collaborating on the branding work I get involved in. The best ideas typically come from partnership involvement and peer analysis. I find my own confidence improves when others are involved.

Hopefully, in the near future, I’m able to pitch on and find budgets that allow for multiple individuals to be involved, from any and all experience levels. Hopefully, we will all be able to work from outside our homes by then, too!

For more on Henry follow him on Instagram @henryslaughter and visit henryslaughter.ca.