Lesley Gulliver

Gulliver has never studied design but has always seen it as solving problems, at school she wasn't sure of what she wanted to do, however she went on to study A Levels, after this she found herself in a managerial role at a job she had been working part time at, through her college life. She found this useful as it gave her the skills of working in a fast pace business and solving problems. She then went on to set up her own business, it wasn't very successful but she was able to learn from her mistakes. The business was a new design of the common dust bin. Gulliver then went on to travel, to many of countries, working different jobs and making new friends and she believes that this is what gave her the confidence she has now. After travelling she noticed that all her friends were getting jobs, houses etc and she felt behind so she went back to university and studied Business, Marketing and French.

During this time she got a job at a brand design agency that was only small around 8/9 people and grew to 34. The roll was pretty much just working on the admin, until the boss decided to throw her in the deep end and she started to work on design etc, her roll then changed to managing websites and working in customer services. She then moved to Sheffield were she worked in client services again but worked for big brands, she discussed how she really didn't like this, she then moved on to a government agency where she was helping business better their brand and having conversations on how they would be seen in the market. She was about 33 years old at this point and worked here for around 2 years. 

Gulliver has worked for the Design Council for 16 years, she is able to use design thinking in better the business'. Gulliver says that the people she has worked with previously and the mentors that she has had are what has given her all the knowledge she has now but also learning from her own mistakes, if you don't make mistakes how are you going to learn? She loves being within the design and business industry as no day is ever the same, you are always working with a different kind of business. 

Gulliver discussed 3 points she learned about on her career journey, that you don't learn in academia. 

1. Measuring the impact of your input.

What I got from this is that you have to explain to the client how your design is going to better their business, is it going to have a huge impact and expand their business, is it going to make them more money etc. You have to lay these cards on the table or the business isn't going to invest in your design, business' are unsure when they are paying for a design because they don't know if they are going to benefit from it.

2. Pitching with credibility.

This is where you are able to gain research and explain to the client how and why your design ideas are going to better their business, use examples and show them the figures so that they have full understanding. 

3. Charging appropriately 

If you can increase client turnover, why would your pay be so low. Look at the figures and charge what you believe to be right. 

Finally, some advice from Lesley. Take care of yourself, remember why you started and stay passionate. If you feel yourself losing that passion stop and look at why. 

I found this lecture really helpful, I think it's really useful to see how people have got to where they have and what they have learned along the way that can help us to start of with more knowledge. I found the final advise really useful, especially at this time. I have lost my passion and motivation to be creative and I think that's because of the pandemic and being stuck looking at the same 4 walls for the past 7 weeks. So to stop and look at why and how I am going to get that back has really helped because it's okay to stop, but I feel the pressure from the University deadlines looming so I feel that the pressure has made me lose that. So having this lecture now, has allowed me to look at where and how I can get my excitement for creating back.