Our Creative team are a dynamic duo who excel at turning complex ideas into easy-to-understand graphics and diagrams. In this thinkerview, Caroline Noordijk (Head of Creative) and Hannah Schickedanz (Senior Graphic Designer) talk about design, creative blocks and clear communication.
How does your design work help communicate complex ideas?
Hannah
It’s cliched but ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ really does apply to design. Rather than somebody having to read a paragraph to understand something, they can look at a diagram and get it in a couple of seconds. It's easily digestible and it makes the page more appealing.
Caroline
People are visually inclined. We’re drawn to pictures. Design can create that picture but also has limitations: you can’t explain things in multiple paragraphs as you can in writing. This forces you to take stuff out and you need to decide on what's important. When we talk to our colleagues, we often ask ‘what's really the essence you’re trying to communicate?’
How does your work help clients?
Caroline
It can make their story more compelling or engaging, which could resonate with more people.
Hannah
The visuals can unlock the content for people and it's a way into everything else. Visual material tends to be quite shareable, too.
Caroline
Our clients and technical staff are doing amazing work and if you don't make it really engaging, you can lose some of the power. Our communication team write in plain English which is where the power really lies. Having something really well-written that helps you understand and makes the content relevant to you beyond the visuals
Hannah
It helps the client rethink what the story is and make sure that that's communicated in a succinct way.
Can you describe some of the different work you've done?
Caroline
We design sustainability reports, Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), executive summaries, and diagrams supporting presentations or online work. We also do short format work like ‘In a Nutshell’. We are excited about how our work contributes and we continue to develop what we offer to our clients.
What works and what doesn’t in visual design? How do you work through creative blocks?
Hannah
Simplicity is key. You can design up the wazoo... But if it's not clear and digestible for the viewer, then it doesn't work. Plenty of room on a page, and I’m a sucker for a good underlying grid so things line up well. Also making sure the hierarchy works so viewers can flow through the content and understand it.
Caroline
I always tell people to look through your eyelashes – what stands out? That's the most important stuff. Take out the things that could confuse. Confusion happens when a layout is too visually demanding and busy. In that case you probably need to split it up or make some brutal decisions, or maybe put things back into the copy where they can be explained further.
Hannah
It can be hugely satisfying having all this stuff to communicate and managing to do it in a really elegant way… combining and working things until something complex comes across as clear and simple.
Caroline
Yes and design follows a different structure so you can be more playful – you can do some unexpected things. Working through creative blocks? If it’s really hard, go back to who created the content and talk about what is important to the project, or what the essential findings are. Or just put it aside... walk away from your desk.
Hannah
Having another designer to bounce ideas off can be really helpful too.
Caroline
Yeah, an extra pair of eyes. Or sharing it with someone who doesn’t know the narrative and ask for unfiltered feedback.
What brought you to thinkstep-anz?
Caroline
I worked in industrial design, as a product designer, and learned about thinkstep-anz. My previous role had lifecycle thinking within the product development cycle, and I wanted to learn more. Barbara (Nebel, thinkstep-anz’s CEO) and I started talking about the potential role (and overlap) of design within thinkstep's work. It led to me joining the team and introducing design elements and expanding thinkstep's design offering to almost everything we do now.
Hannah
I had been self-employed for a long time, designing and making websites with my husband Thomas. A client told me thinkstep-anz were wanting a designer. I'm always looking for ways to do more work in sustainability, so the idea that I could be spending my time doing stuff that mattered was pretty appealing.
Caroline
Yes, sustainability can be complex and challenging to communicate. But it feels good to use your skillset to do something meaningful.
What’s the most sustainable and unsustainable things you've done recently?
Hannah
We have an electric car. And we live in the central city, so we don't have to drive very much. That's a conscious choice my family made. Living closer to people and respecting the earth is something that we really value.
Caroline
Yeah, same. My family also chose an electric vehicle. We’re very conscious about food waste. We’re thinking about the next steps, such as solar, to try and be self-sustainable. In New Zealand it’s relatively easy to make sustainable energy choices as the energy mix is highly renewable.
Hannah
The most unsustainable? We flew to the South Island for school holidays, without our electric car. We drove around in a fat four-wheel drive to get up the mountain to go skiing!
Caroline
I haven't flown lots recently, but I will be flying to the Netherlands where I am from in the near future. There’s the full context of sustainability – economic, social and environmental. The environmental part is very important but how do you get the balance right? I would be absolutely miserable if I was not able to get to Europe at all.
Hannah
My 12-year-old son is doing a speech at school about why humans shouldn't have dairy. So we've dropped our milk intake.
Caroline
We get our meat from Blenheim, it’s hunted game meat (venison, pig, thar) and goats from areas that need to control pest animal numbers. I think that's really cool – and yummy I might add.
What are you passionate about inside and outside your work?
Caroline
At work I love connecting with people, having chats about sustainability and constantly learning. You get to work on projects that are really fascinating.
Hannah
I've been really enjoying working on the thinkstep-anz brand and looking at how we communicate the work that we do. Outside work, art really lights my fire. Painting – I love it so much. I do illustration too. And I've just had some mugs delivered that I’ve illustrated and had printed so I'm really excited about that.
Caroline
Outside of work I’ve been running again, which is good. Trail running, in particular, is super fun. And I’ve done a bunch of wheel throwing pottery courses.