Every time design culture is mentioned in a UI UX Design Studio, it is often believed to be about cool music, people walking around in shorts, funky furniture and flexible working hours.
However, it is more than just that.
It is about the overall mood the entire workforce has that pushes them to grow their skills and deliver their best.
What is Design Culture?
DESIGN + CULTURE, both of these terms are widely used but rarely understood. Hence, design culture as a collective word is often misunderstood.
Defining it in the simplest words, Design Culture means creating an ecosystem in the UI UX Design Studio where designing can flourish. It is a result of creative minds with an edge towards problem-solving, with an eye for detailing.
Do you believe that Design Culture is all about flexible working hours while sitting on a bean bag with some beer and wearing shorts and sneakers?
Design culture is a mix of discipline, flexibility, and a cool work environment. The work dynamics in a design culture are such that the culture acts as a catalyst for a problem-solving and growth mindset.
Such a type of culture sharpens the problem-solving skills of the individual and makes room for creativity. This indeed results in a refined output.
How does Design Culture Help?
If we walk into a workspace and ask anyone as to what were their goals and the company’s goals and the goals are synchronized, what would this mean? This would mean that everyone knows the purpose of their role. Right from the founder to the lower management, everybody has a unified goal.
Such a workspace, which is driven by a unified goal, that disciplines them as well as drives them to perform is the benefit of a healthy work culture.
When the UI/UX Agency learns to practice a healthy design culture, it not only stays limited to the organization but it also reflects on the products and services that they deliver. A worthy design culture in the work environment results in well-designed products.
When it comes to the work environment, even the little things like the architecture of the office and placement of furniture are considered. Besides, a healthy design culture helps in cultivating a trigger which urges everyone to participate in the design process. This also brings the creativity of applying design thinking to problems that are not related to design.
Such a well-stitched design culture encourages the team to experiment and learn new forms of design.
Such a design culture takes away the feeling of inferiority or insecurity that prevents employees from freely expressing their opinions. This in turn increases their appetite to experiment.
How to create Design Culture in UI UX Design Studio?
The tone of the organization:
The leader of the company must analyze the traits of the employees. He/she should work on creating a playful atmosphere that allows employees to create their values, collaborate, and allow their own actions to establish a healthy team culture.
Granting creative freedom to the team is another integral part.
Social engagement:
All the team members have a specific goal to reach for their clients. These goals can be well achieved when they work on them collectively. Everyone in the team must be able to communicate with each other, share trust and ideate innovations, and efficiently solve the problems. This ensures social engagement.
When ideas are brainstormed together, collaborations happen and the final product could likely beat all individual ideas.
Using weekends effectively:
Weekends are the time to thrive your skills and try something new. During weekends, the team can come together and experiment and let their creativity flow into new designs. This time can also be used to have brainstorming sessions and have a sneak-peak into each other’s design ideas and also discuss the new trends in design.
We at Yellow Slice follow Yellow Days on Saturdays where every team member takes lead and teaches something new to others.
Design Culture at Yellow Slice:
To establish an elated design culture, Yellow Slice believes in the following 4 basic principles:
Result Oriented:
We ensure all our endeavors are result-oriented, focused on solving a problem. We brainstorm ideas collectively and then implement them in reality.
Transparent:
Transparency is what helps us deliver the best of experiences. A practice that we strictly follow, includes, maximum data sharing across all levels of functioning. This helps us bring uniformity in perspectives while enabling multiple people to give their inputs.
Freedom:
Design is all about freely expressing one’s ideas. We encourage feedback and inputs from everyone in the team. Constant feedback helps us bring out the best of our abilities.
Helping:
We promote a healthy knowledge-sharing environment amongst our team. Refusing to help someone is highly looked down upon.
More than anything else, we adhere to following a policy where everyone is treated equally. We do not allow the hierarchy to prevent anyone from putting their point across.
Thus, Design Culture has the power of spreading meaningful values through the medium of design for the organization and the customers as well. So, finding the right people, creating a design-oriented environment, and encouraging collaboration will result in outstanding design culture in the UI/UX design studio.
Get the right set of people and orient them in the right environment. Either of these is missed, one misses out on the culture.
If design culture interests you as much as it interests us, we strongly recommend reading the book ‘Delivering Happiness’ by Tony Hseih.
FAQs For Design Culture in UI UX Design Studio
How do you create a Design Culture?
The leader of the company must analyze the traits of the employees. He/she should work on creating a playful atmosphere that allows employees to create their values, collaborate, and allow their own actions to establish a healthy team culture.
What makes a good Design Culture?
Design culture is a mix of discipline, flexibility, and a cool work environment. The work dynamics in a design culture are such that the culture acts as a catalyst for a problem-solving and growth mindset.
