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[ November 19, 2001 ]
With clients that include Chronicle Books, Mohawk Paper Mills, Roberts Enterprise Development Fund, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and the University of California, Berkeley, Chen says, "We take a long-term partnership approach. The value of journeying with a client over many years is that we get to know the client's business almost as deeply as the client does." In 1991 the professor's wife went off to pursue her first love, a career in writing, leaving Chen some of her clients. Four years later, Joshua's wife, Pamela, became the first of Chen Design's six employees, working on the financial side of the business. Committed to maintaining a boundary between work and personal life, Chen moved the business from the basement of his San Francisco home to a studio space in the SOMA district at Howard and Second Streets. In the early days, it was word of mouth and Chen's own industrious self-promotional packages that were responsible for growth. One such package was a calendar in a CD 'jewel box' that was mailed to clients in appreciation for their business.  Nowadays, these same promotional business identities have Chen Design Associates winning numerous awards. For starters, Chen Design recently won the Summit Award Gold for the Mohawk Paper Mills "Heart and Soul" promotion, which appeared in the October, 2001, issue of HOW magazine's self-promotional annual. The assignment was to create a memorable giveaway for 400 of San Francisco's most elite creative professionals. Inspired by San Francisco's rich musical history, and the venue for the event, the Great American Music Hall, the CDA team came up with the concept that San Francisco is to music what Mohawk is to paper. "We created 10 paper CDs that fit inside a clasped, spring activated, specially designed CD case. Each CD featured various Mohawk papers, each with a vignette about San Francisco's musical history. We produced everything from concept to completion," Chen says. The technical aspects included working with five different printers and two die cutters, all providing their services pro-bono. Two days before the party the last CDs were delivered to the client. With Chen Design providing the assembly facilities, 400 CDs had to be quickly stuffed. "It was a great project because the client basically said, 'run with it!' says Chen. "The feedback has been tremendous. The giveaways have become a collector's item." Altpick recently spoke to Joshua about his early days, traveling, and prospects for the future.  Did you always want to start your own business or was it just the course of events? At the same time I was working for the college professor's wife I was also working in a big engineering firm's marketing communications department. Those two experiences and extremes confirmed my desire to work for myself. What I did take away from the corporate experience was learning to strategize, develop structures and systems. What are some of the things that have influenced you along the way? My parents were missionaries so I grew up traveling through various countries: Singapore, Malaysia, France, Belgium, England, Holland, Taiwan, Philippines and the U.S. This has given me a bigger perspective about life, a global appreciation of our differences and commonalities.
Learning how to be two steps ahead of everyone else, anticipating what the concerns or questions of my staff might be. It's a continuing process because I've been in that 'running my own business' kind of mode. So I really am trying to be more strategic and more deliberate in mapping out procedures or how we are going to approach projects. How has your role changed in terms of your own creative contributions? I'm much less hands on although I am still involved in every project that goes out of this place in varying degrees. Sometimes it's providing much more of an editorial eye for things. Other times it is more design direction or implementation. You've said that CDA has succeeded by maintaining the advantageous capabilities of a smaller firm while possessing the resources of a larger firm. How? Part of it is the network of available resources. The same way we partner with clients we like to partner with our vendors for the long term. We see them as bringing extra value to what they do for us. The difference is we don't have those people in house but we have those people available to us, people we can trust. We also have a highly collaborative, team-oriented approach to projects, half of us are schooled in the traditional design school background, half of us are not. This allows us to take an interdisciplinary approach to the problem at hand. Suddenly we are looking at projects from a linguistic bent, from a communications point of view, as well as a graphic and design approach.
 What is it about texture that appeals to you? I think the different layers of meaning that can be taken from it. It enriches my experience when someone sees something different from the design that we've developed. Things are hardly ever that simple. It's nice to be able to go back to something and see something new. What inspires you when you are working on something? I really believe the solution inherently lies within the project at hand. Whether it's the pieces of music from an orchestra's upcoming season, or the conductor's story, or the composer's vision, there is always something of intrigue that can be the spark of inspiration needed. Other times it's something completely unrelated. For a recent book series design on silicon chip technology, one of my designers found his inspiration riding to and from work on BART. Go figure. What's next? There is something about writing a book that has always interested me and I think that's why we've done a lot of book design. It's been a side love for me. My dad was an avid book reader. We had more bookcases in our house than anything else.
- Contributed by Mary Beth Holland >> See other member spotlights on the artist spotlight index >> Find out more on how to become an altpick.com member |
