First Look! 👀 Storytelling as the Secret Weapon in Workplace Design: The Jordy Dent Approach

0:00It was kind of a part of the title. I'm based on the South Coast and kind of grew up on the South Coast. And then my parents are from sort of Northampton way. So there was an opportunity. We all kind of moved back towards Northampton. And it was a kind of a time where it was like, right, I can flee the nest, as it were. My only goal was to work in London. I wanted to get to London. and it was kind of how can I get there without going into London straight away so basically got to a point through my CV at every every business I could possibly find and then was kind of lucky enough to go and start working for a company called Accent Offs Interiors which is now Habit Action so Michelle who you had on was I worked with Michelle towards the back end when I went back there but um I kind of worked there and was the first designer in so again learning the very hard way where you go into a business they've got no internal design and you end up wearing every hat across that business where your technical design your creative design your pitching you're doing whatever and kind of any questions creatively come to you so I kind of fell into it that way because it was just the way it was just it was the opportunity that came to me at the time I suppose no that's nice so you mentioned storytelling is that just a bit of a gimmick or a buzzword or what is trend you're jumping armor uh i think it i think it's one of them i think um for me it's a it's a huge foundation of what i do but i don't necessarily think it is for everybody and there's not a right and a wrong in that the the amazing part of us being designers is that we're all slightly different right so the way you get different designs out of people is different ways of thinking and stuff so but for me it's it's a huge foundation as to what i do because i find it very very difficult to design without some sort of why and some sort of story because it kind of allows me to stay on stay on track um as a designer you get the joy of sort of having imposter syndrome a lot so you go i'm making the right decision am i doing the right things but by kind of having that why and that story from very very early on it allows me to counteract any questions my mind might take me go no this is my concept this is my story let's bring it back and I think um it's a huge part of what I do so I'm not going to say it's a gimmick I'm not going to say it's a kind of buzzword but um I think it might evolve and might change its name over years and and the way it looks at it but I think it's a huge part of what I do and has it always been a big part of what you do or was there a particular time in your career when you're like oh my goodness this is amazing I must like yeah so I think once I'd once I'd moved into London, so I went and worked for an architectural practice called Scott Brownery.

2:47Okay, yeah. Which is a massive learning curve for me. You kind of go from a small DMV company to this enormous business that work on these massive projects. And I worked with some really, really great designers there that you kind of then open your eyes to go, okay, there is thought, there's thinking, there's a story that sits behind all of this. And it just got a click to went, this is the way that I need to design because it makes my life so much easier in my own head um I kind of you get stuck in a bit of a safe space when you don't have a story where you go let's rinse and repeat and do that and DMV I think maybe five or ten years ago or probably ten years ago I started in the industry got a bad name for that yeah um and I've seen in the last six or seven years it's changed drastically to say actually there's as much creativity there's as much um new thinking going on in db dmb and probably if not more than there is in the trad world because of pace and how quickly we get stuff so i think probably working there and working in that trad world where you've got a little bit more time to think about design and think about what you're designing just help open my eyes to go actually this is a massive part of what uh what i do and how i can how i can design and how i sort of start projects yeah so how do you um if you are how do you like uncover a brand story like what are you what's your process for that or what are you looking for so i think i think for me it doesn't just have to be a brand story or a client story i think it's just having a bit of a an understanding to go right i'm going to do a bit of deep dive into the business that you're talking to or the client you're talking to to understand what the building's like what they're like what their tone of voice is externally and internally and brand guidelines are huge on that um and then understand what their what their vision is um to lean into the storytelling kind of narrative that client is your main character in your story but they are that person or that client or that team that you are taking through that story and through those journeys you're just building the story around them as how to get there and what the outcome is so i think um for me it's kind of getting and trying to get under their skin as early as possible we have two different routes where we go you get loads and loads of face time with the client so you can ask those intruding questions and kind of pickets and certain ideas you've got and other times we don't speak to the client at all until the pitch or until the mid bid so you kind of have to go and do that deep dive on your own um where it might be that i'll spend the first day two days of a process with the team going go and find as much information about this business as possible and then let's sit down and go that sounds good that could be something we lean on that could be something we lean on that could be something lean on and all of a sudden it then sort of unfolds um and you'll get some briefs that come in and some sort of tenders that come in where Delgo sustainability is huge for us and for us as a big business it helps because it's sort of ingrained within what we do so if it's we're finding it difficult to find a hook or a sort of tangible story that sits with it we then go down what is the how does the building work what's the architecture of the building is there history within the building is there history within the area as a concept pulling in then some of those sustainability elements that come with it as well so it's it's um it's that kind of early in-depth thinking that that really helps i think um to sort of start that foundation that everything's then built on i mean yeah i i love it and i love projects that i've caught that much substance i don't really know quite what the right word is here but i would feel substance like behind it all so it's like got this like proper foundation and then everything's built off that what's coming straight to my head though geordie is that i hear dnb is like fast paced like you've got no time to return a tender um i hear people saying that literally just deadlines are up at night trying to finish off with it so how do like two precious days how can we afford them afford them how do you like kind of convince the kind that you're gonna i don't know yeah how does that look in family i think i think from my side it's if you can lay a good foundation early on it saves you time in the process and it saves you that kind of mentality of going you could be a week down the line without that kind of two days of thinking and still be no clearer as to where you are great we can crack on with plans we can crack on crack on with sort of some of those elements but when it comes to kind of the essence of that design the essence of that story that two days is invaluable to me um there's business mentality that you go you sharpen the saw and you have two people who are trying to chop a tree down one spends 10-15 minutes stopping to sharpen his saw so his saw's always sharp not blunt he'll chop the tree down a lot quicker than the guy who's just chopping and chopping and chopping and it's kind of taking heed and taking stock to say actually i can afford this two days at the beginning because it's going to save me two weeks in the back end and i think sometimes you don't always have to have the whole thing figured out if you've done the bit at the front end you can kind of go right there's a loose concept here let's drive with this see where we get to see where we get to interaction with clients and then we know if we're onto a good thing or maybe need to slight pivot and change something else

8:41We'll see you next time.