The Importance of Writing

This is the written script of Halftime, episode 61 of the Makers of Sport® podcast. Halftime was a short show on the off weeks between interviews where I wrote and read on topics in professionalism, entrepreneurship and business for creatives in sport. The episode aired December 28, 2015; the audio is on SoundCloud and the show notes live at makersofsport.com. The show's opening and closing announcements are trimmed here.

If you listen to this podcast, you know that there is a strong design focus on the content. Mainly because I myself am a designer and that is where my passion lies. But, I believe design to be a very complex word that includes much more than just laying something out in Photoshop or Illustrator, or creating a logo.

Design is also curation and communication. For example, I believe that this podcast is a massive design project. Not just in the many visual assets that accompany the show such as iTunes artwork, Instagram quote art, the website and logo design and more. But on each interview episode, I am effectively designing and curating a conversation.

Over the 2 years I’ve been making this podcast, I have begun to get extremely efficient at leading my guests through their own stories by designing a conversation. I do that through asking engaging questions at the right times that are based on extensive research, as well as listening rigorously to their answers and guiding them through their own story with a beginning, middle and end. This takes extensive preparation, research and writing. As well as a natural talent at being about to verbally articulate what I’m looking for in that conversation.

The focus on each guest is strong and in the best conversations, roughly 60% of the content is them speaking and 40% of it is me speaking. But, I am intentionally guiding them into where I want to go in those conversations. If they begin talking about something early on I want to cover later in their story, I’ll segway as naturally as possible to something more relevant in the current topic we are covering.

I rarely, if ever, edit the show for content (and for those of you that aren’t sure that that means, I don’t cut out parts of the conversation or move audio clips around to craft a better story). Mainly, we just edit for coughs, speaking mess-ups and when either of us tend to get lost in the thought we are trying to articulate at the current moment. Or if my dog tends to lose her mind for the UPS man at the door.

So the story that is crafted through the conversation we have is something that is mostly done in real time and is following a show online I have prepared in detail. In real-time though, things might not go exactly as planned so I’ll be flexible in regards to the outline and remain in areas of interest that we are discussing and deserve a little more depth.

Curating and guiding a conversation on the fly is a skill I have developed over my 10+ years of being a communication designer, creative director and entrepreneur. Design, much to the chagrin of many Instagram sports graphic makers or Photoshop warriors is not art, it is about effectively telling a story and communicating a message. Design is commercial, it has a goal. Maybe the goal is to get someone to buy something. Perhaps in many of our cases, it is to better engage with a fan base. Or for those of you heavy in the digital side of design, maybe it is to get the audience to do something, such as click button on an interface. Design should have a purpose and should communicate that purpose. And in the process of creating such designs with purpose, we should be able to articulate and communicate our thinking and reasons for creating said design work to our clients or other stakeholders.

Obviously, verbal communication and articulation is a great way of communicating our reasons for creating, but writing may be the way we use most in this digital area of emails, basecamp threads, Slack channels, Medium posts, etc.

I believe that no other skill transcends industries as much as writing. The people in every industry that are the best at what they do are good writers. Consider for a moment some people outside of our little sports circle that are at the top of their game: Richard Branson, Warren Buffett, Dave Ramsey, Jillian Michaels, Sheryl Sandberg, Tina Fey, Mark Ecko, or even a gentleman that transcends industries such as Mark Cuban. All write content, be it articles, books, blog posts, etc. that are well-written, well articulated and full of value.

Consider for a moment even in the design industry, those that are notably at the top of their game in skill, recognizability and speaking engagements, are writing articles on Medium or their own blogs, producing detailed case studies or creating podcasts. They are constantly sharing their educated and well-researched opinions to better position themselves as experts.

A List Apart is an online magazine and web publication about the web design industry. It was founded by a renown web design pioneer by the name of Jeffrey Zeldman. The has revolutionized writing for web designers and was well ahead of its time as it was founded in 1998. Today, articles on A List Apart are written by some of the leading minds on the web. Including Jeremy Keith, co-founder of renown England web agency, Clearleft, and popular speaker on the topic around the globe.

In an interview with my buddy Cesar Contreras on Pencil vs. Pixel podcast, a fav podcast of mine, Cesar asks Jeremy how one gets discovered, becomes well known and sought after to speak, Jeremy responds "Write. Writing is a way to for your to construct your ideas". I absolutely love this explanation for why writing is important. Writing is similar to sketching. We often sketch to try to get out good and bad ideas, and then later refine. Writing can be used as the same way. Writing allows us to put our deep thoughts on paper and to develop our methodologies and strategies for creating.

“Write. Writing is a way to for your to construct your ideas.”

Often times the things that we see in regards to branding are very visual. We are left making judgments based on how they make us feel from a visual perspective. But, many great branding campaign's are full of many great words but explain why decisions were made, what certain visual elements mean, and how to use them. This is why brand style guides are so important for brands.

When Nike's graphic identity group does a new visual identity for a school, their pitch documents include much research and strategy that is written to explain their design decisions.

What if you were working on a branding campaign and you didn't have the pleasure of being in the room with stakeholders to sell said campaign. Obviously it is better to be in the room with people when selling work, but in the case that you aren't able to do so, writing is the next best thing. Often times these types of documents are going to be passed around to numerous stakeholders through email. Being able to articulate your reasoning behind your creation is vital to having it being understood and approved. It also proves that there is actually much more to the process than just making a few clicks on a computer. It shows that there is actual thinking involved. It constructs your thoughts and thinking for the audience.

Writing helps one become a better communicator. I often find that the more I right, the better I am as a speaker and as a conversationalist. Writing allows me to look up and discover new words, and use those words in a proper context. This podcast is one big writing project. Each episode is written as an outline, and halftime episodes such as this one are written as speeches. For those of you that subscribe to the newsletter, you know that I also write articles for subscribers each week. Before starting this podcast I never knew how important writing would be to this project, but now I realize that it is the most important thing when it comes to continuing to produce quality content and to be able to have quality conversations that are high-level and intelligent.

In the startup industry, many designers cannot actually show their work in a portfolio, simply because perhaps there was a nondisclosure involved, or perhaps the work that they did was so specific to a product that it wouldn't make sense to a broader audience viewing it as a portfolio piece. The way that these designers get jobs, and get recognized as good designers, is they write. They utilize places such as medium to write their thoughts and their opinions on current happenings in the industry. They share their ideas in the written form and they proof to those that may be looking to hire that they are intelligent, well articulate, and have an ability to research.

In my first few years out of design school, I would have not fought the writing was that important. I would have thought that all of the visual skills are the most important. But as I have gotten older and more experienced, I have found that writing is very important in regards to being a great designer.

Will being a good writer make you a good designer? No. But, most great designers, are good writers, and can articulate their thoughts and their reasoning for their work. Just as mentioned in the last halftime episode in regards to subjectivity versus objectivity, it is our goal as designers to sell our work and ourselves. You probably aren't getting asked to speak much, but all of us can go ahead and share our thoughts on line. Just be sure to research and provide competent information that aligns with your view.

As someone that has been involved in hiring processes of designers and developers, I can tell you that every single time, a designer or developer that writes will beat out other designers or developers. Because it gives us a view into their head. Showing finished creative work as a portfolio does not do this. But, showing sketches, and deconstructing creative work in written form, gives us a great view into the mind of the creator.

In episode 25 of the podcast, the interception show where Joe Bosack turn the mic on myself, I mentioned that the way that we distinguish ourselves is not necessarily through our work, because many people have the talent and can learn the skills to create good design work, but the way that we distinguish ourselves is through our viewpoint on the world. It is through our personalities. Those are the things that no one can take away from us or mimic. They are what makes us, us. The best way to get that viewpoint into the world is to write.

It's the holiday season and for many things might be slow, if they are, I encourage you to take some time to write every day. You don't have to publish the writing. But journaling, blogging, and getting your ideas out in written form will help you become a better professional, I better communicator, and therefore a better person.