Damien Huze, CDO at W+R Studios, talks design
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Damien Huze is the Chief Design Officer at W+R Studios. He was born in Paris and grew up in a creative environment, watching his parents design ads on the floor of their home office. When Huze was ready to apply his own talent, the internet was just taking off. He found his medium in building websites, first for his band and then his father.
Huze has known W+R co-founders Greg Robertson and Dan Woolley since the inception of the company in 2008 when they connected over a shared approach to software design. At the time, he was running a design shop called Wake Interactive where his small team did design work for tech-driven companies including Verizon, Target and even Jennifer Lopez. Huze consulted for W+R Studios, designing their corporate identity and contributing to the UI/UX of their flagship product, Cloud CMA.
Wake Interactive’s bread and butter was designing usable websites, but Huze eventually wanted to shift his focus to product design. When the opportunity came along to join the W+R team in 2015, he was ready to lead their rebranding effort and apply his talent to design from a product standpoint. On this episode of the podcast, Huze addresses the creative process, the benefits of creative thinking in business and how to view processes as a design task.
What’s Discussed:
-What the creative process entails
-Generating ideas can be frustrating and ugly
-The aha moment when you find a solution is addictive
-Why Boulder is a best case environment for software design
-The level of work happening in the field there is tremendously motivational
-The potential for transformation in the real estate industry
-How businesses benefit from creative thinking
-Design goes beyond simply shaping the way things look
-Processes are a design task, i.e.: hiring, support, etc.
-How Huze approached the rebranding effort at W+R
-A brand survey revealed that the name was the most valuable element of Cloud CMA’s identity
-The rebrand was based on the word “cloud” and employs a very simple mark
-Huze’s team developed Cloud Agent Suite with complementary products identified by color
-Why continuity is the key to a polished image
-An internal transformation was required for W+R to be well-managed from a brand guidelines standpoint
-The changing value proposition of real estate agents
-Agents continue to provide crucial representation as they assist buyers in navigating the process of putting in an offer
-Agents provide local knowledge for buyers who will be joining the community
-Why focusing on one aspect of an agent’s job that is underserved is the best approach to software design
-A product that tries to do too much for too many people is a product that is not great at any specific thing
-The best way to reign in a product manager who is adding too many features
-The goal is to build a product that fixes a problem
-The designer’s job is to figure out if the product manager’s assumptions are correct by asking a lot of questions (Why?)
Resources Mentioned:
Welcome to the W+R Studios Team Damien!
The New Face of Our Brand
W+R Studios hires chief design officer, prepares for launch of Cloud MLX
Connect with Damien Huze:
@huze
Instagram
A couple things to announce. Inman News will be the exclusive distributor of my podcast, Listing Bits. I’m super excited about this and my thanks to Brad for helping it find a wider audience.