 My name is Kirsten McNally. I'm the manager of integration programs at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Tonight, I'm so excited to welcome you to our panel, How to Launch Your Project. This program is part of Cooper Hewitt's National Design Month, and tonight we'll speak with two National Design Award winners, discussing how to gather support for your ideas, meet the challenges of a changing world, and enjoy the journey from idea to launch. We'll have live captioning of this event that you can access by clicking the CC button on your Zoom toolbar, and we'll be here together for an hour, so please get comfortable, feel free to take breaks as you need, and we'll be recording the sessions should you miss any pieces that you'd like to revisit later. We'd also love for you to join the conversation using the chat. And if you have questions for our panel, please add them to the Q&A box. We'll dig into that at the end of our program. This program is sponsored by Target and Amazon Design. Before we get started, I'd like to introduce Bill Verbis, principal UX designer at Amazon. Hi everybody. Thanks for having me. I'm here to talk to you a little bit today about how I got started in design and how my career trajectory has gotten me to the place where I am today. So I'm kind of dating myself for a little bit, but when I graduated from Pratt about 20 years ago now at this point, there really was no concept of UX or really even the Internet was just sort of emerging at that point. It was really nothing at that point, and there was certainly nothing like iPhones or any type of mobile devices. So UX wasn't even really like a thing. It was just sort of a lot of human factors, practitioners and PhDs. And throughout the course of my career, I've been fortunate to work on digital solutions since then. When I first started my career in design, it was actually in traditional design, branding and packaging, but I've always been a bit of a nerd. So I sort of had this aptitude for technology and at that time, anyone who could write code of any sort was kind of a rock star at that point. So me being able to design and actually do some sort of HTML at that time, it was even like flash action script, which is really, really dated at this point. I quickly moved from traditional design to digital design, and I've been primarily doing that for the majority of my career since then, working at lots of different agencies and consultancies, being an entrepreneur myself. And then I've been at Amazon now for a little over four years. I work on the physical source team that created the just walkout technology that you use in our Amazon Go stores. So it's a great place for me. I love working there. I get to work with some incredibly talented and intelligent people working on ridiculously challenging problems. Sometimes my head hurts when I kind of have to figure out what I have to solve for, but those are good problems to have. So that's a little bit about me. Thank you, Bill. And so if you're here to sort of plot your next big move or just think on it a little more, you are in the right place. We've also developed an interactive zine featuring our panelists that you can print out and follow along with, share with friends and collaborators, and that's going to be linked in the chat. So definitely check that out. And I guess with that we can get started. So I'm excited to introduce our moderator Marissa Shanta Cool. Marissa started her career in apparel design and found her way into the tech industry. A creator at heart she got into product design because of its ability to have a positive impact at scale. With her background in fashion, she naturally gravitates towards topics like commerce, wearable tech and emerging technology. Beyond work at MASH, she also co-founded Design Picnic, a community to kickstart your design career, and Uplift Locally, a platform that promotes small local businesses. So Marissa, take it away. Yeah. Hi everybody. Thank you, Kristen. I'm so excited to get started today. My name is Marissa and I have been a designer for as long as I can remember. I first got into print design in high school, and I would spend hours in the art classroom instead of going to volleyball practices like other kids. And during undergrad, I majored in apparel design with a focus in textiles design. And that's when I did a Kickstarter campaign on a modular piece of fabric that can be built upon each other into wearable items. So think Legos, but for fashion. And then I stumbled upon UX design from my back surgery, and then fast forward, I am now a product designer in Seattle, and I focus on interaction design for digital products and services like website and mobile applications. And enough about me, what excites me about the topic that we're going to be talking about today is kind of how to bring your vision to life. Because starting a project can be hard and we always have millions of ideas, but barely any of them get to see the light of day. And so I am so excited to speak with our panelists today, Grace Jen and Nick Yeoman. So Grace Jen is the CEO at OpenStyle Lab, a nonprofit organization committed to making style accessible for all people regardless of cognitive and physical abilities. As a designer, educator and entrepreneur, Grace is focused on developing a body of work to make style accessible by collaborating with disability and aging communities. Her research involves design methods that focus on the body such as wearable technology and accessible clothing. With a background and user experience, Grace experiments how visual graphics and digital tools can increase social inclusion for people with disability. And we also have Nick Yeoman. As a Kickstarter's head of design and technology, Nick helps designers, inventors, startups, and technologists bring their idea to life. And in his six years at the company, he's also done editorial and brand work and produced a podcast celebrating Kickstarter's 10th anniversary in 2019. He has presented his own creative work, often involving musical robots and avenues around the world. He studied creative technology at NYU's interactive telecommunications program and has taught there as well. On that note, let's get started. So I would like you guys to introduce yourself, what you're working on and what is the philosophy behind what you do. Sure, I can go first. Marisa, thanks. Thanks to Cooper Hewitt. Again, I'm the CEO of OpenStyle Lab. My name is Grace. We were lucky to be last year's emerging design winner. And so I'm thrilled to just be back and to be able to meet this year's winner with Nick and all of the peers that we had seen celebrated a few weeks ago. Mostly right now we are working on things that are more about accessible programming. So we had actually collaborated OpenStyle Lab collaborated with MDA, which is the Muscular Dystrophy Association for 10 weeks this summer on how to make different types of clothing hacks and designs with about 30 teens with disabilities, particularly muscular dystrophy. So that has been our pet project and trying to expand more accessible course content, you know, given that we're all on Zoom today, and also trying to make it more of a broader reach. Yeah, hi everyone. I'm Nick Ilman and as Marisa said, I'm the head of design and technology at Kickstarter. And we're really honored the whole organization is to be recognized with this National Design Award this year. And, you know, just briefly, like, if you're not familiar with Kickstarter, we are, our mission is to help bring creative projects to life. And the way that we do that is with crowdfunding platform. I guess I'll just, I think it's easiest if I just pull up a visual here. So the way Kickstarter works is, you know, you bring a creative project to the platform and we have 15 different categories. So I work with design and technology like Kickstarter also serves people doing art and music and games and all sorts of creative work. And basically, you have an opportunity to kind of tell your story. So you produce a video and share some stuff about your work. So this is an example of a design project that just launched this morning, actually, really exciting project from a designer named Max Gondalan. And you set a goal. And so in this case, Max set his goal at $75,000. And then you set a period of time. And so he set it for 30 days. So, and if you're able to hit that goal and that amount of time by getting people to back the project, so he's got over 500 backers already. Then, you know, it goes forward and you have the money to go and create the project. You know, and then backers get to select a series of rewards kind of what they would like in recognition for sort of supporting the project. So, I mean, that's a little bit about like, you know, the mechanism and how it works. As far as our philosophy, there's really a few core things that we believe in. So first of all, just that creative work is vitally important. And we have really expansive definition of creative work, as I said, and also just that we really value independence. So we think of quick start kick fitters a way to get around what you might call gatekeepers. So gatekeeper is somebody in whatever creative industry who would normally be making a decision about what can get made and what can't. So it could be a production company for film or in the case of product design, maybe, you know, a large established company that is deciding what product lines get featured. So Kickstarter is a way for independent creators to kind of bring their work directly to people who care about what they're doing and be able to move forward without getting that kind of stamp of approval from, you know, these kind of established industry gatekeepers. And, you know, finally, too, I'd say openness is really important to us. So Kickstarter is is not just for anyone kind of creative person and it's not just for any one size of project. So we definitely see established designers and people who have been making things for years and years coming to Kickstarter, but it's also a great way for people just, you know, getting their first project out of the world. So people who really just want to share a small idea that's really a starting point for their larger design practice on Kickstarter. And we want that to be open and accessible to people at all stages of their development. Well, thank you both of you Kickstarter. I recommend you guys checking it out. I get lost in there for hours. The place I like to go to when I need inspiration or empowerment is that the community on there is so powerful. And for Grace, I'm curious to know what you think how important was traditional education, for example, colleges or certificates and shaping the career you have today. And were there any other experiences that was as informative as traditional education. Yeah, I think that's a great question. I did have a very traditional design background. I went to RISD and studied graphic design. Fortunately, I don't know. Fortunately, my father was a computer science guy. So I did have the privilege of learning a little bit around technology at an early age, but I saw it as more of house chores and weird things of assistance for my parents until I decided to merge both places. So my, my experience has been looking at a lot of the arts, graphics, visuals, composition, color study from a very college level. But I think my experiences have tremendously been shaped by my own narrative and the things that I care about. I've experienced a temporary disability, which is why Open Style Lab had started in the first place, and to work with people with disabilities, and to make a community around it that is creative, transformational and also welcoming. So that actually happened to me in my senior year, where I was in an accident. And for me as a designer and artist, when I couldn't use my right arm. To me, it was like, that's it. I'm going to be able to graduate, right? I think for any, any graduating senior, it's kind of a moment of a barrier or a boundary or a lack of. So I took that chance to really reteach myself not to only use my other arm to draw, but to explore different facets of making. Started with things that I normally didn't dive into, whether they're digital, or even different tools to collage or paste things. And that sense of creative freedom, I think has been some of the underlining pinpoints that I've carried throughout. It's gotten me more bold to try a career as a user experience designer and strategist at Samson Electronics for about six years, and currently now as a full time professor at Parsons School of Fashion. So you can see that the line of learning career paths, and that has not been linear whatsoever. And I'm very proud to say this because a lot of my own students ask, or I think they're nervous as they graduate, you know, especially given today, what what they're expecting to become, I think sometimes you don't know to you look back. Not only after a decade, I could kind of say, I know why I'm doing, and it only takes a bit of faith, but also a lot of hard work, just trying to be open to trying new places. So some experiences that I've tried was diving into a seminar at Mount Sinai for spinal cord injury research or going to meet up at a online meetup or in person workshop with United Spinal Association that was a few weeks back. All of these like weird or interesting and diverse places that I normally don't think I would have put myself out there for. So I think those experiences have definitely shaped my otherwise traditional background to do what I'm doing today. That is so inspiring. Also fun fact I also had a back surgery and during my senior year. So with Nick, I imagine you work with designers and creators with such a wide variety of backgrounds. What do you notice. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, people who launch projects and tricks that are like some of them do you have a very formal, you know, design background and they went to design school and in many cases we have a lot of wonderful projects actually that are from students themselves and entire classes that are built around designing a product to launch and Kickstarter and so that's definitely one path that people take to getting, you know, their first design project out there. But, you know, there's so many other backgrounds that people have like it can be people who yeah who are working in an entirely different realm and then they realize that like, Oh, like, there's this product that needs to exist. They don't have any experience watching a project or doing anything like that but they decide to use Kickstarter to kind of find out who would support it and find out if there's interest in it. So certainly, you know, I think you shouldn't let not having a formal design background or formal education and design be an impediment to pursuing an idea or finding people, you know, who can help support you and pursue what you want to do. Yeah, I think one thing to note is that there's so many paths and ways in that just and designers come from our walks of life and there is no traditional path and to to your passion. And this question is for both of you. What do you think is the biggest challenge designer space when beginning a new project. I'm happy to kick that off. I'll probably piggyback off and mix comment, you know, as diverse as we love to work with different people, all different types of designers I've learned that's also a challenge. When you have, for example, an open style of we have every summer we team engineers occupational therapist and designers to work with people with disabilities, and they're coming from multiple lens of perspective, life backgrounds, skill sets, different levels of skill sets are or I guess what they're going to do. So I think that's been one of the challenges for a lot of designers is I think working in a very multi disciplinary way, and to be able to put yourself in the shoes of someone who is maybe not from your field, but you should still be able to or be able to collaborate with to have synergy. You know you see the classic example of that an interaction designer user experience design with an engineer and a graphic designer, but you also see that you know in terms of marketing, and also for someone who's in a product design space. Probably I would say that number one thing would be communication, and that we, for example I've heard people say be the client, or the user, or the, the, I guess it's the, the customer, whatever terminology you want to place it sometimes gets lost in translation because we have different notions of it. And I think that's one thing that's really challenging for designers is to really understand and to be able to speak towards other people of other disciplines and an okay way in a way where you don't know always everything. You know, I think one thing that comes to mind to me with with your great question about you know what are the biggest challenges for for designers that we're working with. I mean, often, I think it's just about picking what they want to focus on, like, you know, there's some creators who I'll talk to for the first time about running fixed or campaign in there. They have a singular focus and they know exactly what they want to do but some of sometimes they'll say well I have five different project ideas that I want to do that could all be great fits for kicks that are how do I choose. And so I think this is a familiar problem to many creative people just like the ideas you have outstripped you know your your time and the energy you have to do them. But I so I think in assessing that it's really important to think about like, you know what are you what are you at the right stage to take on right now like and that's both in terms of like your your own skills and but also just like, you know what what how big and how complex a project is right for you right now so even if you have an idea that would require complex manufacturing and producing thousands of units. Like real questions about is that what I'm ready to do now or should I start with something smaller that I can kind of make my hand in the smaller edition and kind of learn all the basics before I level that. And you know I think it's also about like what is the thing that you're excited enough about that you're going to sustain your energy and effort so everybody loves the moment when you first launch your project so when you first, the kicks are campaign and you're releasing to the world or whatever it is like that that first moment of saying here's this thing that I'm making is exciting and really energizing. What can be harder are the months that follow when you're in the process of actually making the thing and fulfilling orders or doing the little things like figuring out shipping rates or packaging design so you really ask yourself questions about like, what is the thing that I'm excited about not just now but like I can imagine after going through all that stuff months from now will still be sustaining and exciting to me. Yeah, you talk about months that follow your launch your date launch and also I'm also curious to know like what happened months before like oftentimes there are a lot of internal and external processes telling us maybe our idea doesn't work. Maybe I'm not ready to start this yet. How would you deal with noises like that and self doubt. Yeah, that's a great question and definitely a big part of my job and working with creators on Kickstarter is is coaching them and like helping them feel confident about moving forward in some ways. I think, like, first of all, you know, self doubt is really hard and it's and it's something that can can make you feel like you don't want to move forward but but in a way it's also like a really valuable tool like, like I would say like if you are not feeling some amount of self doubt and if you're not feeling nervous about really anything you're doing any big project doing, like, maybe ask yourself whether you really care about it like to me feeling about something and feeling like oh it's just going to work. That's the sign that you know I really invested in it and I really care and so try to try to channel that self doubt into something productive and then then also like, you know, don't don't be don't allow yourself to be alone with those feelings like what you know whether you have collaborators or you have like other people in your life who are just kind of like sounding like, you know, be sure to tell people what you're thinking and then beyond that I'll just say that some things do fail and that's that's also okay like Kickstarter is about taking a risk in a way it's it's not it's not 100% of projects that succeed. And we really like the idea that people use Kickstarter not only as a way to bring something to life successfully but also to test ideas and to put it out there and say like, Oh well the way I framed it here didn't quite work, but to kind of move on from there to and reframe it and figure out the next steps. That's also a really exciting and valuable use of the platform as far as we're concerned so it's easy to say when abstractly but yeah try to find the valuable things about self doubt if you can. Yeah, if it doesn't scare you, it might not be big enough. And this question is for both of you. How do you build a community around your idea and what does community mean to you when you're when you're building a product. Yeah, I think it's a multi tier question. Community usually I think stems from people who may have some shared interest but may not come from the same vicinity location, or even background nationality or race, but usually finding that interest in being able to continually participate in it in some way. I think is what I define as a community. I also feel it has a lot to do with you know what values maybe people might have. I've learned so much from just some small workshops with open style lab to our larger summer programs that host like 200 people that everyone's opinion on accessibility inclusion disability and online are very diverse and and doing so that's I think the benefit of what a community does is to kind of bring in all of those perspectives to be able to share maybe some things that other people did not know, or to remove certain stereotypes or stigmas around other ideations that we've had of people's bodies or abilities. I think it's, it's very fascinating to, to see what, like a group of people, especially if they're very diverse, come, come together for, and it's exhilarating and powerful but also helps validate I think a sense of belonging, hopefully, even if, for example, you don't have the skills to make adaptive clothing, which many of our participants usually end up not having when they come to OSL. That's fine, because their perspective is something where we really found different ways to channel using mediums that where they may have lacked resources, even before the pandemic, to be able to talk about. So I'll still never forget I had a collaborator who had shared with us in like a group workshop on literally her drawings on napkins. She had cerebral palsy but her her right arm had I think a little bit more mobility than her left and her drawings were pretty much showing like a stop motion of what she was trying to tell us. So I wouldn't ever eliminate the possibility of like community gathering to bring in innovative ideas is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, I agree with everything Grace said and and yeah and to build on that you know certainly Kickstarter, you know people think of it as about being about funding. But arguably I think the more valuable thing even than the money you get from the Kickstarter campaign is the community you build around this idea. People who are backing your campaign at this stage like care enough about your idea that they're willing to support you and step up and get involved before this thing even exists and. And so like finding that group of people whether it's through a campaign like this or through whatever you're doing that's that's an incredibly valuable thing. And so we talk about it in terms of it's they're not your backers on Kickstarter are not your customers they are a community. And you know I think people who are using our platform in like a really smart way are not just treating it as sort of a one way street of like I'm making a thing and I'm sending it to these people it's also about engaging them in a conversation like they're really amazing examples of. Of people who are backing a campaign becoming really collaborators like literally going to work for the creator but also just providing really valuable and essential feedback and ideas for what are often, you know, products and projects that are still developing So that's certainly the perspective we have I would say beyond that as far as building a community. I think there can be an impulse or temptation to kind of not share your work until you feel like it's polished and ready. Certainly it's understandable I mean like we want to put our best foot forward but I find and I feel that like engaging people and showing showing them what you're working on as you're doing it like is often the best way to get people genuinely excited. About what you're doing and that can be a lot of different forms and obviously right now we have a different set of tools that we have for building a community. So it could be in showing prototypes of what you're making on a social media account. But also like, you know if you're in school like or if you are if you work, you're part of a co-working space or whatever it is like, like the other students are your user testers there are people who you should be showing your work to all the time. Find a way to kind of get people excited about what you're doing and get their feedback early on. And don't don't keep everything secret until you're you know dramatic launch day when you reveal to the world because that really rarely works as far as building a community and excitement for you're doing. Yeah, I think sharing your process documenting your process and this idea of transparency is super important no matter what you do. And like sharing it with the community will give them an insight to what you are doing behind the screen and what you're not seeing on your website. It's kind of it will really differentiate you from other brands other designers. So if you're listening to this right now you're working on a project don't forget to document your process and share it with people. Grace, what is a piece of advice you wish you knew before you embarked on this journey with OpenStyle Lab and your transition from UX to fashion and yeah. I really wish I had taken more time. I think starting a company nonprofit even is a lot of work and community development is something that's continuous it just doesn't take a break. I really wish I had prepared maybe the mentality of staying as highly engaged but also producing I think in ways there are innovative yet I'm still able to listen to the people that work around me. That type of stamina is something I wish somebody I had I wish I had asked instead of going to all of these. I guess startup pitches where usually I would have my ideas like shut down like there's no room for adaptive clothing or disabled clothes or like who needs them and all that stuff like maybe about seven eight years ago. And even those kind of remarks I think have really helped strengthen my approach but the one thing I wish I had before embarked was really the amount of dedication that is needed to do something and to do anything that you feel you aren't weighed by the abilities or you aren't like I need to do a startup because everyone's doing one or I'm making a product to launch it out somewhere that type of mental stress I think is something people rarely talk about. And so I think that's something I wish I had a little bit more time to prepare. And how about you Nick what do you tell designers you work with as they embark on their journeys. Yeah I mean there's a whole whole range of things that people need to do to really prepare. I think I covered some of it is definitely making sure that they're really this is really the project they want to spend significant amount of time and energy on but it's also like, you know like it's counter it seems very simple but like I think a lot of times like they have to pretend like they're kind of bigger more established more official than they really are like if they're an independent solo designer, making it seem like they're a brand or making it seem like, you know this is a fully developed product My advice is generally just that being as open and transparent about who you are and where you are in your current process like, like that's really the best approach like, like people, people support Kickstarter campaigns because they want to see this project happen maybe because they want a product but they're really also supporting you as a person like and, and hiding behind like a more professional veneer or like pretending like you're an established brand if you're not like you're only only hurting yourself like people want to independent designers and real people who have a real story and so not being afraid to to be honest and upfront and really open about that is generally kind of often coaching people to kind of push more in that direction I'm curious to know for both of you what does your brainstorming process look like It is all over the place and it's okay. I would also say like Nick it's been on Kickstarter. I've had many students that I've recommended to just at least try it out to see how many people push the button. So that's one way of I think brainstorming is to really just ask a random crowd that may not know your work or send the link to people around your peers. One of the other things around brainstorming I find the most inspirational is really with people that I don't normally hang out with. I can't say this enough. It's, I know we're in closed doors, but that also makes us more flexible to also meet people around the world. I just had an opportunity to zoom in internationally I was exhausted because obviously it was like six in the morning here, but I was like when are we ever going to be able to talk to people across the globe like this in a way that you don't have to actually physically be there and there's like a different experience to that. So, I think that's what's kind of some of the ways I brainstorm is just connecting. Yeah, I mean there's, yeah it's definitely all over the place but there's actually so the graduate program I went to the ITP which is the interactive telecommunications program which is this kind of creative technology design program at NYU. There was a really common process we use there which I like which is sort of like working backwards. And that is like you start by writing what would be your like dream glowing review of your project so imagine that somebody somebody has seen your finished product. And these are the things that they notice about it that they celebrate about it and that they say like really works about it. So often it's a good way to sort of like clarify in your own mind like even if you don't know how you're going to do it or like even what the details are it's like, what are the things that you hope somebody gets out of this or what is what are you hoping that they'll take away from it. And then working backwards from there to figure out well how do I create an experience or product that sort of fulfills that glowing reviews promises. Totally. And here comes my favorite question and I borrowed this question from my favorite podcast called how I built this by Guy Ross. And so for both of you, how much of your success today do you think is from luck and how much of it is hard work. I mean, I'll dive in. I don't know if I have exact percentages but you know it's definitely a huge amount of luck. And that's in many different forms so there's, you know, like I definitely have been privileged to be just even, you know, had opportunities to to study the technology design and all these things that have ultimately made me here but it's also, I think there's the luck of my career path has been extremely weird like I came to this current work through doing video oral histories and building musical robots and then doing design and technology work but so I think like it's it's luck but it's also it's so in terms of finding yourself in these places where you have these opportunities but it is sort of like something to to dive in and really throw yourself into something when something really excites you when you're like oh yeah that's that's something that I care about being willing to put in the hard work and being willing to in some cases sleep as much as you should or to you know forego jobs that would pay you more to to to pursue those things because ultimately I think that's what's going to be you're going to do your best work if you're really pursuing something that there's that little negative joy that thing that is driving you toward it saying like this is really what you want to be doing. Yeah I mean I agree there's a big power of luck, but I also think you just need some grit. I wouldn't even say hard work just have some stamina. We all get distracted. We all lose interest in certain projects at a certain point, but rarely do you feel like you're finishing right even though I've lost interest in other other arts and other types of things I still try to explore randomly by collaging I used to have this like crazy obsession of collaging things for a year. That didn't you know get anywhere wasn't on Kickstarter wasn't on a website not even my portfolio but it helped me vent out the things I wanted to explore. So I think that is how I would define as like hard work but also luck when you're in the community to talk about your ideas because you've already kind of explored it in some form or fashion, even if it's not directly what you've studied. All right, and as we keep our conversation going I want to make sure we have plenty of time to take some questions from the audience. And I know Grace needs to head out first so we'll get some questions and then for her first. Let's see I'm looking at Q&A. Okay. How important do you think the drawing skill is for a design career. I feel like I have the mind of a designer and I love problem solving, but drawing has always been something I used to determine from going the design route. If it is important how can I go about learning. Yeah, I think drawing is one of the most important visual skills you could explore. But it's also like what do you define as drawing right when I got to explore what drawing meant from my own perspectives and then high school and then also in college. It totally destroyed my idea of what like I thought is mark making or sketching. And so I think it's interesting to be able to explore this skill in a way that is comfortable for you. If it starts off with looking at the Kickstarter videos and you know copying the little drawings and trying to be able to reproduce them. That's how it could be. If it's more about you know I want to be abstract and look at more different charcoal mark making tools, maybe different forms that are used to create color or different types of like gestures I think that's like another level of exploration. So all in all I would say it's important but not to just think of it as such a narrow perspective of a skill set is what I would recommend. Okay, and Susan as you can have a community without trust. How do people share ideas and designs in the Kickstarter community without worrying their notion will be picked up by someone else and produce first. Sure yeah I mean this is I mean you know this is a concern that's worth thinking about obviously not just with Kickstarter but you know if you're if you're producing something. There is always this concern of putting putting an idea out in the world does sort of invite people to copy it in a way and there's of course there are good ways of copying something that pay tribute and there are ways that are just ripping off an idea. So, you know, like, there's no there's no magic trick to protecting your intellectual property on Kickstarter. I mean it's the same thing you would need to think about in launching any business and whether it means getting patents or trademarks or whatever it is to protect it. But but bear in mind to that having those things by themselves don't. You have to be willing to hire lawyers and enforce it and so so it's often about also just finding like what is the thing that you can create or what is the element of what you're creating that really makes your version of this unique like it's easy to copy the physical form of sometimes but really building that community building a user experience building like you know the connection that you have amongst users or with with you as a creator. That's the thing that somebody who's just generically trying to copy your product isn't going to be able to recreate and so again like thinking of the 30 days of your Kickstarter campaign as a conversation with backers that really help forge a connection to you. That's going to be the most valuable thing that you can't just recreate by, you know, you know, creating the physical thing. Yeah, I totally agree. This is this question is from Catherine. How do you suggest not getting this courage if we have a failure a naked and negative critique people don't understand your idea. How do you not give up too soon. Um, yeah, I think I could try to ask that question I just came out of a class critique and I will probably jump into another one after this but um, yeah, I think, you know, the most, I would say the harsh critiques that I've gotten during college and that I've actually seen some of our graduate students get are probably at that moment a little bit shocking. But when you take it in, you really know that person's trying to tell the best that they can for your for your work, and in a way that I think nobody honestly will say it to your face. So I think in most of the cases, if you do have a guest critic, or if you have someone, especially in a classroom that is invited there, they're not there to, you know, dismantle your work. They're there to really poke at the holes that you might be missing. So I would just take it with a grain of salt but also be bold enough to ask back, like, you know what, I didn't know that. So X, Y and Z and just ask back. I've seen, including myself, you know, I've frozen a couple of times when I'm like, I can't believe I just pitched this idea and, you know, I totally skimmed over through that. But I wouldn't stop there. I would just lose, engage back. And don't be scared. It's okay. All right, and this question is for Nick. So I have tried to launch my Kickstarter campaign and was a little overwhelmed of the website landing page and promo video production costs. I have little to no knowledge of setting up such material. Is there any affordable or referrals you would suggest or refer for such service. I mean, this is this is definitely something that a lot of people face and as I said before Kickstarter is is not just about big established creators running big projects but but you know the truth of the matter is that often those are the most visible like so when a you know, it's not just about the coverage and design blog or whatever it is. It's often because it's a very professionally produced campaign that has raised a lot of money and so it's easy to look at that and say, Oh, I can't even produce a video like that so how can I I mean, and my advice is definitely like, so there's not like, I don't have some list of budget video production services but I will say that, even if what you have is your phone and a lot of creativity you can produce an amazing Kickstarter video and so many examples of people who have made videos that leverage like just their ideas and the creativity and again like the kind of intimacy. It's a really special feeling actually when you see that somebody has like made something themselves. And so if that's the level that you're at as far as producing a project, let that shine through. And then I'll mention to, you know, we have a number of creative prompts that are specifically designed around projects that don't have giant budget so there's something called quick starter which you can look up and that's a set of rules for producing a Kickstarter campaign that doesn't rely on huge production budgets. And there's also something called make 100, which we do every January which is a way of doing projects that are specifically limited to just producing 100 rewards and that's a great starting place and and definitely a lot of those campaigns are not no production budget basically it's just what you can produce yourself with the resources you have at hand. And other than that, think about your extended creative community. You have a friend or a friend of a friend who is an aspiring videographer or photographer I think it's a great opportunity sometimes for somebody like that to kind of get to work on a Kickstarter campaign video. So like, try to find people who are the same stage as you as far as being ready to dive in and be creative and be a little bit scrappy about how they do it. Totally, although Grace has to run she just love to go teach your class of Parsons, but we still have plenty more time for Q&A so please feel free to drop in more question in the Q&A box, and we got this question from Susan. How can people access, access facilities to produce prototypes for a design they would like to pitch on Kickstarter. Yeah, so that's a great question and it also does get so it's actually a really important point too. So if you're launching a product on Kickstarter that has a physical reward we actually have a rule that you have to show a working prototype and this is really important because you know you've got to be able to show backers like beyond just what you can do with, you know, computer renderings or drawings that you've actually gotten someplace as far as making something and so we know that that that is that is a really hard thing to do sometimes. And I think it's especially challenging now because I mean the answer under normal circumstances would be there's there's resources like fab labs and maker spaces where if you need to access for instance a 3D printer to be able to produce a prototype or some other type of equipment. There are community resources and a lot of places that you can draw on that that are not just about like access to the machines I mean the machines are expensive and it's great to have access to it but often what you get when you join a maker space or you go to a fab lab is you get people who are kind of buzzing with enthusiasm and know how to use these things and want to show you how to do it so definitely I mean beyond that being really creative about prototyping with what you have so like an initial prototype for design is usually very basic and it can be even something that's kind of cobbled together with like everyday objects or existing products it's really about a proof of concept so that you can try out one very specific thing about it. Now you might want to have a more developed prototype before you go to Kickstarter but if you can make the thing you want to make with duct tape and you know taping together little things that you find around the house unless you find out well is this the right size for us or like does it move in the way that I want or whatever it is like that's that's still really valuable research and it's the way a lot of really advanced products start with you just kind of very rough-hewn proof of concept sketches. Yeah and there's a question did you have mentors or seek out mentorship any advice for finding a mentor if I am new to design so I can start I can try to answer this because I just transition to UX design not too long ago like a year and a half almost two years now and it was really hard for me in the beginning and mentorship did help a lot and having that relationship it doesn't have to be someone who you are directly working under but is I was lucky to find a mentors on on Twitter so Twitter is a platform I very surprised by how many designers on there on Twitter and they're always so helpful and there are a lot of websites that provide free mentorships and I would try to look for that and drop it in the chat but I think what have worked for me is cold emailing or asking my friend who knows who knows someone and kind of intro me to that person and I am still connecting with that mentor and she has helped me tremendously more than more than even my teacher sometimes yeah how about you Nick Yeah I mean I mean I think like mentorship is actually one of the really lovely things about kicks better as community of creators like it's it's something that we see over and over again that not just us trying to help people who are launching campaigns but like are the past network of creative people who have run Kickstarter campaigns often will meet somebody who's launching campaign because they are being mentored by or being helped by somebody who we know and love already from past campaigns so that's that's definitely I mean if you see somebody who's whose work you love you know never hurts to reach out to say like I love what you're doing and I'm thinking about doing this maybe they have time to help you maybe not but establishing that connection to be really meaningful I will give a specific shout out to you know the one of actually it's it's a kickstarter some kickstarter creators who were among the first people to launch a product design a kickstarter it's a place called studio meet they're a studio design studio out of Austin Texas and they actually in recent months have set up a formal mentorship program for people from backgrounds that are traditionally under represented in the world of product design so specifically focusing on BIPOC LGBTQ and women so I would say definitely check out that program they're really really knowledgeable and really very generous with their time and there's a formal process through which you can kind of apply and help thinking through every aspect of producing a product from their perspective so again that studio meet and so that that's one one formal program I know of that people can kind of leverage oh I was muted another question from Joe I'm working on a project that would be focused on elevating the artists and people's local community one thing that we have noticed is that our success may hinge upon how much that community feels that we are coming to them with authentic intentions do you have any advice on not only engaging your prospective audience but also building trust with them yeah I mean I mean this is this is this is core to succeeding not only on Kickstarter but I would say with like any creative endeavor like you have you have to be a legitimate member of the community that you're hoping to get support from it's not a one-way street and so like I really don't have any like there's no no simple advice but but again it really boils down to being honest and really presenting yourself clearly so so for instance like we we really discourage campaigns from using marketing language and things like saying like the world's first of the world's best because that just like creates a distance between you as a person and and your backers and it's not about like your project it's about kind of you know marketing fluff and things like that so really try to understand like what is the value you're providing to somebody why is the thing you're creating interesting and treating and why should they want to get involved and think about if you're doing a Kickstarter campaign think about it in terms of rewards like a reward shouldn't just be like oh you know here is a token for supporting it should be meaningful be something that like somebody who is excited about where you're creating is really excited to get that because it's a way of connecting with you and connecting with what you're creating yeah and where do you this question is from anonymous attendee where do you find inspiration or do research for a new product idea with so much out there it is hard to identify a new idea or a new approach to an existing idea what type of homework can I do I'd love to hear what you think about that Marissa I mean as a designer how do you I find inspiration I don't know I think I like to do things with my hands so with match for example I just I like to so a lot in my in my free time and it just came to me naturally and it's just my my friend my classmates my teachers really like the back that I was doing so I was selling them at a very discounted price and it came to a point where I couldn't keep up with the amount of orders that I was getting anymore so that's when I turned to Kickstarter and yeah and other places that I look for inspirations I also look at Kickstarter before I started match like I was looking at is anyone else doing anything out like similar out there and what are they doing that is successful what are they doing that maybe need some more improvements and I see that improvement as an opportunity for me to come in and maybe do something better yeah I think that that what you're describing resonates I think with a lot of people's experience that I've spoken to another thing I'll say is just like inspiration isn't linear or like it doesn't always start like an idea doesn't always start from a brainstorming phase or from just sitting and thinking about what you want to create sometimes the idea comes from working with your hands or like actually you're trying to make another idea but then you realize oh actually this thing I made take me another direction so my general advice is you know don't don't let there be too much time between having an idea and trying to make it like even in a really rough way because that process of getting in and trying to make a proof of concept is going to tell you right away like a lot of important things about your idea and also maybe the process of making something is actually the thing that sparks another idea so don't let it stay in your head actually even in a very basic way just try to get your hands dirty and start working on something yeah I want to add to that too because I mentioned my back surgery in my junior year and I was in fashion school at that time and I had I was hospitalized for a little bit and I was just in my hospital bed couldn't do anything with my hand I couldn't so I couldn't like I couldn't go to school so I was just making my portfolio for my fashion work as I was trying to look for internships and jobs after I graduate and then I realized that I really like to build portfolios and I really like but splitting my work all together and I was like hmm I lived on myself during that time and I know a lot of people in tech industry and I was like I'll take this opportunity to have this like hospitalize to maybe learn something new so if I didn't jump off that cliff in Mexico back in 2018 I might not even be here today I might not even be a product designer so sometimes like just incidents or is a very small event in life can really change what you do or your interest. Okay, I just question. Sorry I'm just going through what has already been answered. Is it okay if my work is all over the place. I've done fashion product kind of everything. Where do I narrow and where can I celebrate all my experience. I think so I mean you know I think there's there's different paths some people some people love focusing very tightly and easy some people who will be basically they'll spend their life making very slight variations of the same thing because they really care about perfecting this one thing. And then there's other people there's some some designers that use Kickstarter that like every time they launch a project I don't know what they're going to launch because like there's one design team I think of that's based in Brooklyn called CWNT and sometimes their projects are really beautifully made metal pins. And sometimes their projects are very weird clocks that that just count forward from the moment when you pull a pin so like they do all these different projects and so I think it's more matter of like if you if the things that you like to make are very widely varied. Try to find what is the thing that unifies them or try to find like what is your philosophy, like what helps you decide yeah this is a project that fits within my creative philosophy or fits within my creative practice and like what makes it outside of that, even if it's not about lines of traditional disciplines or the actual thing that you're making. Right. We can do one more question. Okay. Sorry. Nick, when launching a product is it necessary necessary to have already lined up once manufacturers distribution when use, or is it enough to have a design that is realistically thought out, and if the manufacturers are not lined up how do you determine what the cost and dollars amount to ask for. Yeah, this is this is a really important question. And, you know, ultimately, the more prepared you are going into a Kickstarter campaign, the better off for everyone involved. So, you know, like technically you can launch a campaign if you have a working prototype and are able to present that idea. But I'd say if it's really, if you really don't have any idea how you're going to go from that prototype to manufacturing something at scale, if it is a project that requires manufacturing at scale. And remember, not all projects do if you're doing a small run of something. I would really be cautious about putting yourself in a situation where, as you as you point out like, if you haven't actually talked to a manufacturer and you haven't actually gotten realistic sense of how this will be made. Yeah, it's very hard to know what you should charge for your rewards or like how much money you need to raise so you definitely always encourage people to do as much work as possible to understand how they're going to move forward and make something. And not only that but to be really transparent about that so like a really important part of building trust with the community and Kickstarter is telling them exactly what stage of the process you're in and saying you know if you have manufacturing plans worked out explaining what those are. So this gives everybody a much clearer sense going into this, what they can expect moving forward and so that nobody sees your beautifully produced prototype and says well I thought it was a finished product, even if you still have a lot of questions that need to be worked out. Thank you, Nick. On that note, I think we have to wrap it up for the evening, and just want to say thank you all so much for this conversation, and to all the participants in the chat and Q&A. And please check out the zine for more inspiration on launching your project and enjoy your night. See you guys next time. Thank you. Thank you everyone.