So You Want to Be a Product Designer—Council

DEREK CHEN, Founder

No One-Hit Wonders
Beyond the obvious, which is talent, I look for commitment. I don’t want to work with a one-hit wonder. If we’re fortunate enough to find a young designer who continues to bring his talent to the market—whether it’s for us or for someone else—it’s great when they turn into the next Arik Levy. That’s what we look for, somebody who seems talented enough to become the next famous rock-star designer. I’m not sure I want to say “famous rock star,” but you know what I mean.

The Art of Cold Calling
The best way to cold-call me is to say, “This is what I’ve designed. These are things that are already in production. This is an example of my prior work. And this is the kind of thing I think we could do for you.” But I’d want to have a dialogue first. I’d like to get to know their work and look at what they’ve designed over the last few years.

Inferring the Brief
With the designers with whom we already have relationships, we issue them a brief. It says, “This is what we make, and this is what we’d like, can you design something according to these parameters?” Now, younger designers will say, “I haven’t gotten a brief, so I’m just going to blast my designs out there.” That’s not what they should do. They should try to infer that brief. I’m not saying they should read minds, but they might look at our line and say, “You know what? They don’t have any bedroom furniture. Maybe that’s
a direction in which they want to go.”