The Importance of Self-Branding with Zack Davenport
Read on to gain insight into Zack Davenport’s thoughts about the importance of self-branding. Zack is the Founding Designer at Hellosaurus, an interactive video platform for kids.
In the past, he’s worked in-house at Vimeo, Foursquare, and Vine (RIP), and freelanced for companies like Nickelodeon and HQ Trivia.
Q&A with Zack Davenport
Read time: 10min
“JC’s Pizza Cave,” Created by Zack Davenport.
Mack Garrison:
Let’s start with a little bit about you. Tell us about how you got into the design industry and what led you to Vimeo.
Zack Davenport:
I started design as a hobby back in high school and was interested in t-shirt design. Threadless.com was a big influence on me back then and designing t-shirts and getting feedback from the community was how I learned the basics quickly. I hadn’t considered making design into a career but eventually found myself in the college of design at NC State University studying Graphic Design. I was always in the print lab screen printing and doing letterpress which is where I imagined my career would go. A lot of the designers I looked up to were making a name for themselves up in New York, so I had a lot of aspirations in eventually moving there.
Senior year, I was starting to put my feelers out there, starting to apply for jobs. I ended up getting a job at Foursquare in New York, as a Communications Designer. My job started mostly in Marketing; working on print deliverables, direct mailers, and marketing assets. As I grew there, I started getting more into the visual design of the app itself; the branding, the iconography, doing all the stickers and badges for Foursquare's app. That got me interested in visual design and branding and eventually led to me looking for a new role. At the time, I was talking to one of the co-founders of Vine and he ended up hiring me as a Product and Brand Designer. Vine was an interesting moment for me because I got really into animation, motion design, and understanding how the two can go together. I got an appreciation of motion and how my designs can take a life of their own when animation is added.
When Vine folded, I wanted to continue in a role that was specifically for Brand Design, but I liked working with video and I wanted to find another similar role. When I started talking to Vimeo, the pieces just aligned. Now I've been there for a little over three years. I started as the only Brand Designer on the team, and now it has grown from just me and a copywriter to a team of around 15 people.
“motion is at the forefront of all of our design thinking.”
Mack Garrison:
I can't believe it's been three years. That's wild. I feel like it was just the other day, I remember you started Vimeo. Tell me, what is expected of a brand designer? What is the role of a Brand Designer at Vimeo?
Zack Davenport:
Brand Designers at Vimeo oversee all the design work and all the creative that goes out the door on the marketing and brand side. Any time there's a product launch, maybe there's a marketing campaign geared towards that, that would be the work that I oversee. Also, making sure that that work is up to Vimeo’s high standards.
A campaign or anything like that can touch a lot of different media. Anything you see on vimeo.com, when you're not a logged-in user, are pages that my team and I have designed and support. We design emails and videos. We have an in-house production team that we work very closely with. We have motion designers on that team that we work with as well. Though I'm not necessarily animating anymore at Vimeo, I am art directing those projects; working with motion designers who are much more talented than I am and using them and their abilities to elevate the work that we want to do.
Mack Garrison:
Let me ask you this, Zack. Naturally, within the motion design industry, we can steadily see the progression of our field as we've grown, and how much more complex it can become. As well as the different avenues you can take with it. How have you seen the brand design role shift because of motion?
Created by Zack Davenport.
Zack Davenport:
Yeah, totally. I think motion is at the forefront of all of our design thinking. As a video company, I'm working with developers to make sure that all of our landing pages can support embedded video. We want to use video in a way that gets people excited. We make sure that everything we put out there has a video-first mindset, in a lot of ways.
We just launched a new product called Vimeo Create, it's a way for small businesses to create short videos, more Instagram-style stories, and other social videos. We are working on a campaign for that right now.
Mack Garrison:
Do you have any tips on how freelancers or smaller studios should think about their brands?
Zack Davenport:
I think a lot of studios or individual freelancers don't think about branding at first, which makes sense. You want to focus on the client's work and everything. But branding yourself is a great way of making sure the client understands what they're getting when they work with you.
Mack Garrison:
I think one of the things that we were excited about when we started our branding project for Dash with you was a lot of surprising aspects that I don't think I would've thought of, had we gone at it on our own, versus bringing someone like you in.
Let's say someone out there wants to rebrand themselves. What would you encourage them to do first? What's the first thing you do when you're starting a branding project, whether it's freelance or something at Vimeo?
Zack Davenport:
Yeah, that's a great question. I think a lot of people don't understand the amount of thought that should go into a branding process, on the business owner side. For example, I'll get a lot of people reaching out asking for a rebrand or something like that. The first thing I'll do is send them the questionnaire that they should fill out. It's a lot of questions around: what is the long-term goal of the company? What's the short-term goal? What’s your company’s special sauce that separates you from your competitors?
These are all things that influence the brand. I think a lot of times, people don't quite understand when they reach out to a designer for a rebrand how much thought will have to come from them first, and how many questions internally they'll have to answer. I think it's a great process. Especially when you have business partners, it's kind of an opportunity to take a step back and align together, to make sure that you're both on the same page moving forward.
The biggest challenges with rebranding projects occur when that alignment doesn't happen in the beginning. All the answers to my questions inform the direction that I end up pitching to the client. If there isn’t an alignment at the beginning, then the brief isn't there, it isn't fleshed out. And it doesn't lead to the best results.
Zack Davenport bio picture.
Mack Garrison:
Can you give some more examples of the types of questions you may ask a new client?
Zack Davenport:
Yeah, sure! What are the personality traits that you want your company to embody? When a client is looking at your website, looking at your videos, what is the expected result of that? How do you want them to feel when they've seen it? I think also, having a clear understanding of where your brand lives in the world. If you're a bagel shop, you're going to have a different result in terms of branding process than you would for an agency that makes digital ads. All those areas where your brand lives are extremely important when approaching the design of a logo, of a type hierarchy, of color, and scale.
Mack Garrison:
I'm sure you've seen so many portfolios, either from vendors or people applying to jobs at Vimeo. What are some of the more egregious things that you see that people don't think about, that they should be 100% considering when they're building their website?
Zack Davenport:
To be honest, I think some of the more egregious stuff that I find on portfolio reviews and stuff like that is trying to overdo it. I think a lot of time the best answer for a portfolio is generally the most simple one.
Sometimes, over-designed portfolio websites can overshadow the work itself. I think that's the most important: your portfolio is meant to show off your work. Unless you are a web designer and you're applying for a job as a web designer, I think the web design portion of your portfolio should almost take a back seat, if that makes sense.
“branding yourself is a great way of making sure the client understands what they're getting when they work with you.”
Mack Garrison:
What are your thoughts on platforms like Instagram or social media in general? Do you feel like that's an important presence to have, as any designer, whether it's motion or static? Is there a necessity to have social media in that regard?
Dash mark and a supporting brand system created by Zack Davenport.
Zack Davenport:
I don't think there's anything wrong with having your work in as many places as you can. I still get a lot of client projects through Dribbble, for example. Especially for motion designers, having a portfolio on Vimeo and Instagram just makes sense. You never know who's looking or who could track your work down in various ways.
Mack Garrison:
Do you have any thoughts or ideas on what the future of designing a brand looks like? Any thoughts on things that either companies or freelancers should be cognizant of as we move into the next 10 years?
Zack Davenport:
I think about that question a lot. The tools that we, as designers, use regularly are constantly changing. Even the stuff that we were using five years ago isn't necessarily the stuff we're using today. You can't be attached to anything. One thing I've learned throughout my entire career is you have to be willing to embrace the next big thing or drop what you're doing based on client feedback and try the next thing.
Mack Garrison:
We just got back from a portfolio review down at SCAD. We had a lot of students who were asking about things they should think about when they get out of school. If you could advise yourself 10 years ago, what advice would you give?
“one thing I've learned throughout my entire career, is you have to be willing to embrace the next big thing...”
Zack Davenport:
I personally believe the best asset a designer can bring to a team is being a generalist; someone who has the skills and passion to solve the problem, no matter the medium. Be the person who can jump from branding to product design, from illustration to animation depending on the day. Focus on keeping nimble, keeping fresh, and creating a process that doesn't rely on specific tools. take advantage of the resources that you have available to you and keep challenging yourself to learn something new.
“focus on keeping nimble, keeping fresh, and creating a process that doesn't rely on specific tools.”
Mack Garrison:
Zack, this was great. I don't want to keep you too long. Any teasers for what you might be talking about at the dash bash? Have you given any thought to that yet?
Zack Davenport:
Been thinking a lot about it. I'm not going to tease anything yet. I have too many options.
Mack Garrison:
No, that sounds good, buddy. This was great, man. I appreciate you taking the time to hang out.
Gif created by Zack Davenport.