By Design: Obsessing Over the Process with Bradley Hodgkinson

Bradley is a production designer from Ontario, Canada with 10+ years of experience in the industry. He specialises in large scale asset production, dynamic versioning, JS animation, and personalisation. Besides graphic design he enjoys luthier work and music creation/recording.

LBB> Tell us about your current role and design specialism(s)? 

Bradley> My current role is the production lead at Performance Art. I specialise in all things production design and dynamic personalisation.  

LBB> What drew you to design in the first place and how has your design career evolved?

Bradley> My design journey began with the music industry. Being in a niche community within the music industry, the common practice was DIY. From design to recording, everything was a labour of love to bring your vision to life. Throughout the process, my time started shifting away from creating music and toward the design aspects that were involved – which ultimately pushed me to pursue design professionally. 

My career evolved alongside the industry as digital design became more prominent. I started with an internship as a digital designer and quickly developed valuable skills within product retouching, asset management, print production and development. Things took a dramatic turn when I began my coding journey, at the time when personalised content delivered via DCO was becoming a hot topic within the industry. 

LBB> What aspects of design do you get really nerdy about personally? 

Bradley> I tend to obsess over the process in which a task can be completed. Trying to find the most efficient way to do something leaves more opportunity to grow my craft. I also really like a good dynamic coding challenge – finding a way to manipulate data to work in different ways is like an itch that can’t be scratched.  

LBB> There are so many new design tools out - what tools do you like to use and why? (whether digital platforms or old-fashioned pen and paper!) 

Bradley> I use a variety of design programs but I’m mostly living in the world of Figma right now. I have a strong familiarity with the Adobe suite, so quite a bit of work is still filtered through those tools. Outside of the design application landscape, I primarily work in Vanilla JS as it allows me to manipulate and program without the constraints of a library like jQuery. 

LBB> What are the most persistent misconceptions about your particular design specialism that you see across the advertising and marketing landscape? 

Bradley> I have encountered the misconception that production design is an entry-level design position numerous times. Production is critical to the overall health of a brand; final product design and brand consistency are pivotal factors for brand health and ultimately brand success. 

LBB> Accessible design is an increasingly prominent topic - from your experience what are the most challenging facets of accessible design? And what does best practice in accessible design in your particular design specialism look like? 

Bradley> To me, the most challenging part of accessible design is the ever-changing technology to support it. Updates to technology benefit the end user significantly, but it can be challenging to incorporate all aspects within your designs.

LBB> What design controversies or challenges do you find trickiest to navigate or do you find yourself thinking about most frequently? 

Bradley> When new technology is emerging, there is generally a desire to pursue ideas within that new space. While these opportunities are exciting, there are often unexpected challenges due to the untested nature of the new tech. These kinds of situations are difficult to navigate, especially as you are working against a project timeline and the unknown always adds uncertainty and unforeseen challenges.

LBB> How do you think about the ethics of design? 

Bradley> I think as designers we have a massive influence on the public perception of topics. We need to hold ourselves and our designs to a high moral/ethical benchmark to ensure we are not misinforming the consumer/end-user.

LBB> What are some of your favourite examples of creative design solutions that inspire you? 

Bradley> The Lottie library created with Airbnb opened up my mind to new possibilities. Coming out of a time in which web animation was in flux (switching from Flash to HTML5), the concept of having extremely complex animations felt like a pipe dream. The introduction of Lottie allowed designers/animators to work in a high-performing application like After Effects, convert vector animation into usable code via JSON files, and animate directly in an HTML5 environment. 

LBB> Which design projects throughout your career have been the most satisfying to work on and why? 

Bradley> Projects in which I need to learn a new skill feel the most satisfying to me. When I embarked on my journey into programming, I was presented with my first opportunity to work on a DCO system without the use of a platform. While this was initially overwhelming due to its complexity, when the project came to life it gave me feelings of pride and accomplishment. I continue to pursue those same feelings every time I touch a project. 

LBB> What’s going on at the moment in design that’s getting you particularly excited? 

Bradley> Gen AI integration and hyper personalisation has me pretty excited. As Gen AI tech continues to mature and our understanding of consumer profiling heightens, the ability to target an individual’s needs/wants is quickly becoming a reality. Watching these systems unfold is proving to be a pivotal time in advertising. 

LBB> Who are your design heroes and why? 

Bradley> Every day I am amazed at the talent of all the designers I work with today and those that I have had the pleasure of working with throughout my career. I believe that sometimes our internal doubt is our own worst enemy – it can stop amazing ideas in their tracks. But great designers continue to pursue great ideas and push things to their fullest potential. The driven nature in which we work inspires me across all aspects of my life. We always need to strive for more, never be afraid of challenges, and never be afraid to ask for help. When we work collaboratively, nothing can stop us.

LBB> Thinking of people at the beginning of their career, what advice would you give them for navigating this constantly changing field? 

Bradley> Watch what’s next in tech. New technology informs us as designers and the ways in which we can interact with consumers. But don’t overestimate the value of any piece of tech at the outset – be sure you have a thorough understanding of its use cases and limitations before diving in headfirst.