VSA Partners hosted the fourth Small Talk on July 22. An informal presentation, two partners Jaime Koval and Steve Ryan chatted candidly about their company’s challenges, successes, philosophies and culture. Meanwhile, a slide show silently exhibited one great project after another for clients including Converse, Argo Tea, IBM, Target and the 2016 Chicago Olympic bid.

The conversation was less about specific projects and more about VSA’s approach to design and business. Run by a collection of partners, the company functions as a “design ecosystem,” where resources are pooled and then dedicated to specific group efforts.

“Everyone here is committed to doing great work,” said Koval. VSA officially opened its doors in 1982, but grew out of a long-established legacy by veteran designer Bob Vogele. Almost all of VSA’s client work is referral-based — a testament to its strong reputation of high-quality, creative work.

With this in mind, much of what the partners discussed was about maintaining creative integrity with clients, even in the face of circumstantial adversity. For example, what do you do when a client throws you a curve ball? “Well, I tell my staff its not shoulda coulda woulda,” said Ryan, “we’ve got to deal with the stuff we’ve got and make it great.” “It’s absolutely in your control to come up with an alternative,” added Koval. “Clients aren’t just buying design work. They’re usually buying something else. When something goes wrong, be flexible. Ask yourself ‘What is the new opportunity here?’ and move on.”

When asked if the partners ever have trouble selling their good ideas, both members agreed that they do. Koval offered an interesting method in solving this dilemma. “First, make sure that your client wants good work. Make sure that they’re interested in creativity. They should be ambassadors of good work. Secondly, set the stage for them. Identify their expectations, convince them that you understand their situation and the politics of their business, and manage their standards. Thirdly, do really great work and present only great work. Bad work doesn’t get produced if bad work isn’t presented. Fourth, find out who to please, as in who writes the check, and present to them.”

In the future, VSA plans to continue qualifying their client-base in an effort to keep growing creatively. They want to move still more into the web and other new media and be more active in sustainable design. What’s more, the staff has recently increased to the point that VSA is bursting at the seams. “We need to solve our space issue. We just have too many people for this building,” said Koval.

As for the future of graphic design, Koval believes that doing extraordinary work is no longer a matter of doing good projects. It’s not about one excellent packaging suite or a really buttoned-up annual report. “It’s better now to go for work that changes a client’s business. That’s what design does now.”

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