Deep Dive with Charli Marie — Lessons in career growth and creativity

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Season 1

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Episode 9

Lessons in career growth and creativity

Charli Marie

Creative Director @ ConvertKit

May 25, 2023

44 min

music by Dennis

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About this Episode

In this episode, Charli takes us behind the scenes of her role as Creative Director at ConvertKit. She shares all kinds of insights about brand and marketing strategy, how to tell data stories, and how to level up as a copywriter. If you're looking for creative inspiration or ways to advance your career, then this episode is for you ✌️

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A glimpse at Charli's role as a creative director

[00:00:00] Ridd: Charlie, can you give us

[00:00:00] an

[00:00:01] of

[00:00:01] who you are

[00:00:02] and maybe just like

[00:00:03] your kind of career arc as a designer and what your journey looks like?

[00:00:07] Charli: So I'm Charlie. I'm a designer, currently working as creative director at Convert Kit.

[00:00:12] I've spent my whole career working in

[00:00:14] brand and marketing design. I love it. I love this side of design. I feel like it's the perfect mix of

[00:00:19] art and science

[00:00:20] I love it so much that I also spend all of my free time creating content about branded marketing design to help other designers along their journey.

[00:00:28] Ridd: Basically everything I know about brand and marketing design has come from your Twitter and YouTube channel. So thank you. You, you're doing a good job.

[00:00:34] Charli:

[00:00:34] I

[00:00:34] love, love to be that person.

[00:00:35] Ridd: You are definitely that person.

[00:00:37] Can you give us a little bit of a glimpse into what your day-to-day as a creative director at Convert Kit looks like and, and maybe

[00:00:44] helping us understand what are the types of projects that your department owns

[00:00:48] Charli: yeah, this is a great question , I'm glad you asked

[00:00:51] when I first became a creative director in tech, I honestly didn't know what a creative director did within a tech company. I had to figure that out. I lead our brand [00:01:00] studio team.

[00:01:00] We're a multidisciplinary team of creatives and we're responsible for evolving the ConvertKit brand, making sure creators feel affinity with it, that we're creating things that they can relate to. That help educate them on our product as well as producing the marketing assets we need to market, the Convert Kit app

A glimpse at Charli's role as a creative director

[00:00:00] Ridd: Charlie, can you give us

[00:00:00] an

[00:00:01] of

[00:00:01] who you are

[00:00:02] and maybe just like

[00:00:03] your kind of career arc as a designer and what your journey looks like?

[00:00:07] Charli: So I'm Charlie. I'm a designer, currently working as creative director at Convert Kit.

[00:00:12] I've spent my whole career working in

[00:00:14] brand and marketing design. I love it. I love this side of design. I feel like it's the perfect mix of

[00:00:19] art and science

[00:00:20] I love it so much that I also spend all of my free time creating content about branded marketing design to help other designers along their journey.

[00:00:28] Ridd: Basically everything I know about brand and marketing design has come from your Twitter and YouTube channel. So thank you. You, you're doing a good job.

[00:00:34] Charli:

[00:00:34] I

[00:00:34] love, love to be that person.

[00:00:35] Ridd: You are definitely that person.

[00:00:37] Can you give us a little bit of a glimpse into what your day-to-day as a creative director at Convert Kit looks like and, and maybe

[00:00:44] helping us understand what are the types of projects that your department owns

[00:00:48] Charli: yeah, this is a great question , I'm glad you asked

Advocating for a promotion

[00:01:18] Ridd: I watched a video of yours and you talked about how last year you advocated for a promotion but like a different type of role where you thought you could have a little bit of a higher impact and I think that's a pretty scary thing for a lot of designers and I'd love to just learn more about what that was like and and how you kind of even positioned it and ultimately what the outcome of that conversation was?

[00:01:40] Charli: Yeah it was I think about a year in or maybe even less into this creative director role that I realized as it had been defined when I was first moved into it did not suit what I wanted to be doing in my career.

[00:01:53] One of the main things that I was responsible for at the time was reach So getting ConvertKit stuff in front of more [00:02:00] creators. And the more I thought about this and the more I struggled with it I was like... wait on!! This is marketing This is a marketing activity to get in front of more people as a creative I can contribute to this by making stuff that is highly shareable really engaging so that when someone sees it it encourages them to take action.

[00:02:18] But having a marketing skillset that's not what I want it to grow in. I didn't wanna learn how to get more attention and like grow more reach. And so that was a problem right That was what my role was requiring me to grow into and I didn't wanna do that luckily I have a really really supportive team, around me and a really supportive manager... I brought it to him and was saying this doesn't suit me, Here's some suggestions for ways we could slightly change my role and change our team structure to make it a better fit for me which in turn is a benefit for ConvertKit

[00:02:50] And that was a risk And I knew going into it that I had to be ready to accept If the answer was this is your role If you don't like it you have to [00:03:00] leave

[00:03:00] And that's what I was ready for I knew this wasn't right for me I love Convert Kit love the team but I can't spend the majority of my time doing something that I'm not passionate about life is too short for that

[00:03:10] lucky for me, it all worked out I managed to make a convincing case.

[00:03:14] Now we have this brand studio team structure that is more focused on creative output and evolving the brand rather than growing reach

Advocating for a promotion

[00:02:50] And that was a risk And I knew going into it that I had to be ready to accept If the answer was this is your role If you don't like it you have to [00:03:00] leave

[00:03:10] lucky for me, it all worked out I managed to make a convincing case.

[00:03:14] Now we have this brand studio team structure that is more focused on creative output and evolving the brand rather than growing reach

Dynamics between brand and marketing

[00:03:22] Ridd: Can you talk about the collaborations and maybe even like the tensions between the brand studio team and the marketing Team because I would imagine you're you're almost always working together and if it makes sense using this lens of ConvertKit, it just launched the Creator Network which is a pretty big initiative can you help us get a sense for how does something that big come to life and what are those points of collaboration with other team members?

[00:03:45] Charli: Yeah at Convert at the brand studio and the marketing team we work closely together And in fact before we did this org structure change and I became creative director most of us used to be one marketing team and I think that helps with our collaboration

[00:03:57] We know each other well We know our working styles. [00:04:00] So when it comes time to launching a new feature like the Creative Network that's a big feature for us and something we know that we want to do a big campaign for.

[00:04:08] The role that I play in this as creative director is setting the brand positioning for the campaign in the creative direction the campaign narrative so I'm involved with our product marketing manager where she's positioning the product through the feature and I'm positioning the brand and we combine that into what we wanna communicate through the campaign

[00:04:28] this was definitely an area of growth for me because previously in my role as a marketing designer I would have thoughts and opinions on the like campaign messaging and strategy but wasn't actually responsible for creating it

[00:04:39] So that's been fun to dive into

[00:04:41] Um So yeah that's where collaboration starts with me and the product marketing manager. And we're a very collaborative team in general at ConvertKit so everyone can add their input, share their thoughts and opinions then marketing handles the go-to market strategy, so they're saying what we need to produce and what [00:05:00] channels we wanna put it out to and how often this is the timing how it's all gonna work

[00:05:04] And then on the brand studio side we're responsible for creating all those things

[00:05:08] And making sure that okay we know we need to have a website or a landing page that we can send people to We can decide then is, it just gonna be a regular feature page, Do we wanna do something more custom... for the Creator Network general launch we're doing something very cool and more interactive

[00:05:22] And so I'm excited about that and that was more a brand initiative that we saw we could do for the campaign

[00:05:27] But yeah that's how the the collaboration works

[00:05:29] Ridd: so one of the things at Convert Kit is you talk about bringing the brand into being for creators by creators which like sounds really cool it's an awesome rallying mission but it's also ambiguous like what does that actually translate to

[00:05:42] So how do you take something pretty high level in terms of a brand positioning and how does that actually get to the creative that you are making and the different campaigns that you are powering?

[00:05:53] How do you take that next step from this high level vision to all right let's make something?

[00:05:58] Charli: So I think it's more important [00:06:00] is like how we do that how we show it not just saying that we're for creators by creators and for us that starts us honestly right at hiring

[00:06:07] we want to bring creators onto the ConvertKit team so that the people who are working on the marketing campaigns, who are working on the video assets, even hanging out in support queue answering creators questions, that they have a deep understanding of creators because they are creators.

[00:06:21] That's really celebrated at ConvertKit and I love that and I think that's really important we aim to make creators the heroes of our brand

[00:06:28] So that's a choice we often make in design and in producing our brand assets

[00:06:33] we have this fantastic program of profiling creators, a storyteller on my team interviews creators writes long form profiles about them that go up on our blog but as part of that we do photo shoots with each creator

[00:06:44] And that not only gives the creator a nice set of like brand photos for themselves but we as ConvertKit get to use them as our own personal stock image library so every photo you see on our website that is a real creator who really uses Convert Kit and we really took [00:07:00] that photo or paid a photographer to take them and we look for chances to use creator's photos whenever we can to make sure that you know we're always profiling them in their creative spaces

[00:07:08] We generally look to bring a sense of creativity to everything we do as well. We just recently revamped our illustration style and they're very sketchy and loose and they feel creative.

[00:07:19] They have that sense of you're at the beginnings of an idea and you're working through something So that's some of the choices we make in trying to express that we are four creators by creators is partnering with creators to feature them as part of our brand and making sure we're producing creative things ourselves

Dynamics between brand and marketing

[00:04:39] So that's been fun to dive into

[00:05:04] And then on the brand studio side we're responsible for creating all those things

[00:05:22] And so I'm excited about that and that was more a brand initiative that we saw we could do for the campaign

[00:05:27] But yeah that's how the the collaboration works

[00:05:53] How do you take that next step from this high level vision to all right let's make something?

[00:06:21] That's really celebrated at ConvertKit and I love that and I think that's really important we aim to make creators the heroes of our brand

[00:06:28] So that's a choice we often make in design and in producing our brand assets

[00:07:08] We generally look to bring a sense of creativity to everything we do as well. We just recently revamped our illustration style and they're very sketchy and loose and they feel creative.

Systems to manage brand assets

[00:07:34] Ridd: you mentioned the illustration style I totally noticed it. It's really really cool and I get the whole early stage ideation feel from it can you share a little bit more about how you manage these illustrations internally as a team and what are the systems that you have in place to make sure that the brand is cohesive and things are kind of fitting together?

[00:07:54] Charli: Yeah I'm gonna be honest that it wasn't for a long time and it's still isn't

[00:07:58] We have a lot of illustrations [00:08:00] existing out in the wild that haven't been replaced with this new style and I don't know that's sort of something I've gotten used to I've been part of this small team for a little over six years now and I'm used to the like small team way of operating where you cannot do everything all of the time, you gotta let some things go

[00:08:15] And for a long time illustrations were one of those things for us but we just wrapped up a project to officially sit down and define our illustration style. Before it was up to the designer to interpret the brand however they wanted when they created something so we have that defined now.

[00:08:31] We worked with a really talented graphic designer on that who does contract work for us and I essentially played the role of art director in that encouraging her to try different, things giving her feedback...

[00:08:42] We ended up with this style of like three levels of illustration so really detailed less detailed and barely bigger than an icon and we are just working on building out that illustration set at the moment essentially

[00:08:54] We know we want to create one for every section of our app, every main benefit we try to communicate [00:09:00] and we're just working our way slowly through them

[00:09:02] There's only 10 in the system so far and we hope to just keep building it out month by month through the rest of the year

[00:09:08] Ridd: Can you share a little bit about how Brand and marketing design fits in with some of the internal design systems that a team is using and what that relationship is like?

[00:09:19] Charli: Yeah so there are two of us handling design on the brand and marketing side Myself and the senior brand designer on the brand studio team And then we have three product designers at ConvertKit

[00:09:29] And so we will meet every few weeks for a design team meeting and make sure we've got strong lines of communication across the two sides of design at the business. We have one shared design system file in Figma where we have our logos, our colors, the illustrations live in there now two and a few other things that we know we share across the product and marketing side

[00:09:52] Aside from that we maintain separate design systems because while the product might wanna do something that's much more functional and [00:10:00] also they use a lot more shades of gray than we do on the marketing site where like color and so you know I think that having that one shared system in the middle allows us to stay aligned on the things that are most important

[00:10:10] And that having the design team meetings creates that alignment without us having to all work from the same system. It leaves it up to the experts of each area right to make make some of the decisions

Systems to manage brand assets

[00:07:54] Charli: Yeah I'm gonna be honest that it wasn't for a long time and it's still isn't

[00:08:54] We know we want to create one for every section of our app, every main benefit we try to communicate [00:09:00] and we're just working our way slowly through them

[00:09:02] There's only 10 in the system so far and we hope to just keep building it out month by month through the rest of the year

[00:09:08] Ridd: Can you share a little bit about how Brand and marketing design fits in with some of the internal design systems that a team is using and what that relationship is like?

What makes a brand visually iconic

[00:10:21] Ridd: Can you share more about what you think makes a brand visually iconic and

[00:10:26] Charli: ooh

[00:10:26] Ridd: what are the things that you're doing at Convert Kit to take steps in that direction

[00:10:30] Charli: I think what makes a brand visually iconic is when it has a point of view and an opinion that is driving it. I think that we're not there yet with Convert Kit and having a truly iconic brand but that there is so much potential for it to be given the mission we have as a company. The fact that we are founded by our creator. We exist to help creators own a living. We're a team full of creators. We put that into everything we create.

[00:10:54] I had someone comment on one of my YouTube videos the other day about my illustration system where they were like what market [00:11:00] research did you do to know that this is the right style like how many user research calls?

[00:11:04] And I was like guess what?? Did a big fat zero snd and that's because I'm doing market research all of the time like I'm constantly learning about creators both through my own experience and from staying in touch with the customers who use Convert Kit. that all feeds into the design decisions we're making even if the research isn't happening right there and then.

[00:11:23] I think that foundational that like base understanding and deep knowledge of an audience is what can be a foundation for an iconic brand in the future.

[00:11:31] Ridd: I love that. I I think as designers we so often put research into a box as a step within a design process And it's like...no, e very step is research We're always researching We're constantly learning and trying to deepen the understanding that we have with the end users the people that are coming across our brand in the wild. So I have no qualms at all with the big fat zero

[00:11:50] Charli: I love it Yeah Gotta gotta be honest you know

What makes a brand visually iconic

[00:10:21] Ridd: Can you share more about what you think makes a brand visually iconic and

[00:10:26] Charli: ooh

[00:10:26] Ridd: what are the things that you're doing at Convert Kit to take steps in that direction

[00:11:23] I think that foundational that like base understanding and deep knowledge of an audience is what can be a foundation for an iconic brand in the future.

[00:11:50] Charli: I love it Yeah Gotta gotta be honest you know

Contributing to company strategy

[00:11:53] Ridd: Yeah yeah exactly so you also talked in one of your videos about wanting to contribute more towards[00:12:00] the overarching company strategy

[00:12:03] Mm

[00:12:03] What does that look like for your role and and what are the steps that you're taking to do that?

[00:12:08] Charli: That sense that I had that I wanted to be more involved in strategy I just wanted to be able to contribute more in that area and not only have be be more of a voice at that level of the company but also get to learn from that too... that came about as I was discovering the opportunity to be moved into a creative director role

[00:12:26] And so that was a huge reason why I wanted to take the leap into it was so that I could be in those leadership meetings so that when we are writing up like a company strategy doc I'm one of the people that our CEO is asking for feedback on it with.

[00:12:38] And for me that's looked like learning a lot from how other leaders contribute to that type of conversation, Like looking at what feedback they give as an indicator for the level of detail that perhaps I should be going into. but I also have been really lucky to have a lot of encouragement from other leaders at ConvertKit that my opinion is valuable and that they wanna know what I think

[00:12:57] I am very vocal [00:13:00] whenever like feedback is is asked for on strategy I always like sit there and I think about it and I try to you know give my take on on what we should be doing and we don't always obviously listen to me I don't know best all the time but just having that encouragement and and being encouraged to speak up and have a voice I think has been really important.

[00:13:18] I'm really grateful that at Convert Kit my perspective as a designer but also as a creator is valued at the high like strategic company level

[00:13:26] Ridd: Yeah. That's awesome It sounds like you're really flourishing in that role which is exciting. You've been at Convert It Now for I think over six years

[00:13:34] Mm-hmm

[00:13:34] Which a long time that's like that's a long time in tech I commend you That's a pretty awesome um

[00:13:40] Charli: it's over half my career now I think

[00:13:41] Ridd: That's amazing I mean it speaks it speaks to what ConvertKit and Nathan are are doing You have to create a really special place for someone to wanna stay for six years when it's not like you know you wouldn't be able to find other opportunities so

[00:13:51] yeah especially when you are someone like me who is very very much has a growth mindset. I don't wanna stay stagnant to my career I want to continue to learn [00:14:00] and improve and I need to be working somewhere that allows opportunities for that. I've been surprised honestly for such a small company, we were only like 20 something people when I joined 6 years ago and now we're only like 70 six years later.

[00:14:12] So that's not that fast of growth in in the tech world especially. But despite the company intentionally growing slower I as a you know creative professional have been able to really grow in my career in that time.

Contributing to company strategy

[00:11:53] Ridd: Yeah yeah exactly so you also talked in one of your videos about wanting to contribute more towards[00:12:00] the overarching company strategy

[00:12:03] Mm

[00:12:03] What does that look like for your role and and what are the steps that you're taking to do that?

[00:13:18] I'm really grateful that at Convert Kit my perspective as a designer but also as a creator is valued at the high like strategic company level

[00:13:26] Ridd: Yeah. That's awesome It sounds like you're really flourishing in that role which is exciting. You've been at Convert It Now for I think over six years

[00:13:34] Mm-hmm

[00:13:34] Which a long time that's like that's a long time in tech I commend you That's a pretty awesome um

[00:13:40] Charli: it's over half my career now I think

How to grow as a brand manager

[00:14:24] Ridd: Can you share a little bit about some of the ways that you think you've grown over the last six years Maybe outside of the more like contributing to company strategy? Um

[00:14:33] Charli: yeah I think that the way that I've grown most in my career over the past six years has been through following curiosities and honestly stepping out of my lane. Not just doing the work that someone has asked me to do and creating the landing page, creating the social media assets, whatever it is, but more being the one to come up with ideas for AB test we could run on our site myself and like ideas for other projects.

[00:14:55] Learning from other people on the team and their areas of expertise and [00:15:00] focus and diving in there where possible, not stepping on toes but contributing you know and getting out of just focusing on design. That has I think has had a huge impact on me because I've been able to become I think more well-rounded as a designer because I'm bringing in all these other skill sets that I dabble in from time to time and it's all making the design and brand work that I do stronger because it's informed by all those other things

[00:15:23] Ridd: I'm glad you brought up AB tests because my impression of you is that you are able to wear like a lot of very different hats especially for someone that's like more in brand like you're in such a creative role more than a lot of product designers and yet here you are like doing a lot of talking about technical skills or being more data driven so even just to start at like a high level I'm wondering how do you strike this balance between testing things and doing abs and measuring conversion rates versus being like truly creative and preserving the artistry of your role

[00:15:55] Charli: this is why I think that brand and marketing design is the perfect [00:16:00] mix of art and science because to do it well you do need both sides. If you are just focusing on making beautiful visuals and making something that feels good but you're not thinking about okay

[00:16:11] how is this gonna take someone to convert them into the next step in our funnel?

[00:16:15] How is this gonna encourage them to take action?

[00:16:17] How are we gonna stay top of mind as they consider all their options amongst all the you know different tools they're considering?

[00:16:24] Then the beautiful art you're creating doesn't serve the business which is ultimately the reason why you're creating it in the first place let's be realistic

[00:16:32] That's what design is and I think that that's why I have dedicated so much my free time to making content about branded marketing design

[00:16:40] I want more people to realize this

[00:16:42] the working title for a book I'm working on at the moment on this topic is 'more than making things pretty'

[00:16:47] I just want people to realize that brand and marketing design goes much further than making things look good and that when you create the beautiful art with a base understanding of the goals that you're [00:17:00] aiming for and the impact that you need it to have it can be really really strong and it can take you really far in your career too

[00:17:07] Ridd: You heard it here first January 2024 Is the book release date

[00:17:12] Charli: oh no!! you're committing to put deadline

[00:17:14] Nope Strike that from the record

How to grow as a brand manager

[00:14:24] Ridd: Can you share a little bit about some of the ways that you think you've grown over the last six years Maybe outside of the more like contributing to company strategy? Um

[00:16:11] how is this gonna take someone to convert them into the next step in our funnel?

[00:16:15] How is this gonna encourage them to take action?

[00:16:17] How are we gonna stay top of mind as they consider all their options amongst all the you know different tools they're considering?

[00:16:24] Then the beautiful art you're creating doesn't serve the business which is ultimately the reason why you're creating it in the first place let's be realistic

[00:16:32] That's what design is and I think that that's why I have dedicated so much my free time to making content about branded marketing design

[00:16:40] I want more people to realize this

[00:16:42] the working title for a book I'm working on at the moment on this topic is 'more than making things pretty'

[00:17:07] Ridd: You heard it here first January 2024 Is the book release date

[00:17:12] Charli: oh no!! you're committing to put deadline

[00:17:14] Nope Strike that from the record

Telling data stories

[00:17:18] Ridd: so I think it's I mean it's it's obvious that you are bought in on like the power of of of telling stories with data. What are some of the ways that you get the rest of your creative team to embrace that mindset?

[00:17:30] Charli: Mm-hmm

[00:17:31] So I had a really fun challenge to to do this with the brand studio team because many of them are like more on the artistry side of things

[00:17:40] A way that I helped it connect in their mind I think was talking about looking at insights looking at metrics as telling data stories. Every time you look at a chart or you're looking at a spreadsheet of numbers what you're really looking for is what story are these numbers telling me?

[00:17:57] what story is this chart showing?

[00:17:58] This line is going up , [00:18:00] what does that mean? What does that tell me about how my work is performing and framing it that way I think helped my team to feel less afraid of data or like less overwhelmed by it right as well as to understand that what I was looking for from them wasn't for them to tell me oh this video had a 30% retention rate I wanna know how does that compare to the previous ?

[00:18:21] Are we making improvements in creating content that helps engage creators and get some statistics around longer?

[00:18:27] Was there a certain point that more people dropped off that we should be aware of next time?

[00:18:31] And like digging into those details so that the data means something to us and is valuable to us

[00:18:37] Ridd: How do you figure out what the story is that the data's telling you?

[00:18:41] Do you have like an example of where you were able to kind of see past just the numbers and you know chart go up and actually see the the why and and a little bit of a deeper understanding of what was happening behind the scenes?

[00:18:51] Charli: When I check in on our metrics and something seems different than what I expected either It's like off of our [00:19:00] forecast It's doing way better, it's doing way worse then you go okay why why might this be happening.

[00:19:05] And you start to come up with a hypothesis

[00:19:08] this is why I think it's really important to step out of my lane as a designer and understand other parts of the business because other parts of the business could be impacting this thing that I'm looking at and so I think about what I've heard is happening recently, Think about at what point if it's a site conversion rate for example what point of user's journey are they landing on this page?

[00:19:29] Has the traffic to this page changed recently?

[00:19:32] Have we changed what type of traffic we're sending to the page?

[00:19:34] Just start to like really try and think about reasons why it should be happening and follow hunches and follow curiosities to dig into that data as well. Sometimes you're piecing together a story and you're not quite a hundred percent sure if it is accurate It may might stay a hypothesis, But it's still useful I think to to think about data in that way

[00:19:53] Ridd: Yeah I love it

[00:19:54] Something that I've been trying to grow in more recently is sometimes you can just [00:20:00] like look at the data and look for what stands out and try to figure out the hypothesis but actually sometimes it works a little bit backwards too where it's like I'll actually approach it with I can make a hypothesis that like maybe one of two or three things are happening and then like it almost creates a lens to through which to look at the data and being able to it almost shines a light on certain things that maybe otherwise wouldn't have stood out

[00:20:21] Charli: I think it's great for anyone who you know works as a creative professional to have aspirations to get better with data there's still things that I wanna learn better how to dig into so that I'm my hypotheses are more based in reality and they can be more accurate and be more trusted

[00:20:36] But yeah I think it's a good curiosity to follow and that it can only make your work stronger when you learn things from data

Telling data stories

[00:17:30] Charli: Mm-hmm

[00:17:31] So I had a really fun challenge to to do this with the brand studio team because many of them are like more on the artistry side of things

[00:17:57] what story is this chart showing?

[00:18:21] Are we making improvements in creating content that helps engage creators and get some statistics around longer?

[00:18:27] Was there a certain point that more people dropped off that we should be aware of next time?

[00:18:31] And like digging into those details so that the data means something to us and is valuable to us

[00:18:37] Ridd: How do you figure out what the story is that the data's telling you?

[00:19:05] And you start to come up with a hypothesis

[00:19:29] Has the traffic to this page changed recently?

[00:19:32] Have we changed what type of traffic we're sending to the page?

[00:19:53] Ridd: Yeah I love it

[00:20:36] But yeah I think it's a good curiosity to follow and that it can only make your work stronger when you learn things from data

Importance of knowing how to code

[00:20:43] Ridd: So on on top of the data side of things you also talk a good deal about the importance of being able to understand HTML and CSS as designers which I'll be honest I didn't see coming from a brand

[00:20:58] Charli: really

[00:20:58] Ridd: designer and like creative director

[00:20:59] [00:21:00] I was impressed And so can you talk a little bit more about like why that is so important for you and maybe even a little bit about how you went about growing in that area

[00:21:08] Charli: so my hot take is that maybe not all designers need to know how to code but I think that if you are designing websites you should at least be able to read code and like understand what HTML and CSS are because that's like the materials that our designs are ultimately built with

[00:21:24] When we design something in Figma we're creating the blueprint and the plan for what the finished product should look like and HTML and CSS are basic building blocks for how that plan is brought to life

[00:21:37] so when you understand them and you understand their constraints and how things are structured you can make better design decisions either maybe you are making decisions about things that can speed up the build time or like actively avoid slowing it down at least and also you can work better with the developers who are building out your websites as well

[00:21:54] you don't have to code it yourself but you should understand the language at least be able to read it so that you [00:22:00] can better communicate with the dev

[00:22:02] Ridd: I love that I think something that we don't talk enough about as an industry is one of the best ways that designers can impact the business is actually making the engineers they work with more efficient engineers are expensive

[00:22:14] And if you can find little ways to like help their process and speed up you know just even what each each individual engineer is able to accomplish in a given cycle that moves the deal like financially not just making people happy like actually you are increasing the the amount that the company's able to accomplish based off of whatever the burn rate is

[00:22:35] Charli: Absolutely

[00:22:35] And the better you understand that the more informed your choices will be

[00:22:39] There's times where the developer on my team says okay this is gonna be complicated to build and I can say I get it It's important because it's gonna like have this result in the end and it's worth us spending time on

[00:22:52] And then there's other times where we can say that and I'm like great thanks for telling me It's absolutely not worth spending extra time on let me change it to this this and this [00:23:00] so that it can just be like something quicker to get out

[00:23:02] that's a really important part of of producing work that is in that mix of art and science like we talked about

[00:23:09] Ridd: Yeah I it's actually one of the reasons why I kind of attribute Webflow as like a tipping point in my career as a designer because it taught me how to think about code and how front ends

[00:23:22] Charli: Yeah

[00:23:23] Ridd: Actually work And even though I didn't know how to write any of the syntax I knew it was possible and I kind of I could picture like the the UI of Webflow and like well I know I can align things like that which means like you can definitely do it in css

[00:23:36] Charli: Yes

[00:23:37] Ridd: And it made things so much more attainable so then when I started dabbling in a little more little bit more of the syntax, It was 10 times easier than the first time I tried to load into code which I failed miserably at

[00:23:48] Charli: I love that that was the way around you went Cuz I look at Webflow and ask someone who has a background of like Learning to code, building my own WordPress theme for my website, I was even responsible for [00:24:00] building the Convert website for the first couple years on the team which is just wild to think about now that I was entrusted to do that

[00:24:07] But I look at Webflow and I'm like okay this is the HTML and this is the CSS

[00:24:12] You know we've got the panel that you add things and then the panel where you style things things

[00:24:16] Ridd: Okay

[00:24:16] Charli: and that's like how I wrapped my head around Webflow

[00:24:18] So it's interesting to hear that Webflow can help you wrap your head around code

[00:24:23] Ridd: Yeah

[00:24:24] What was your journey like then, once you realized okay I want to become more technical I want to understand the basics of front end, where did you look?

[00:24:32] Because I'm always trying to encourage designers to do this but it always feels like the resources out there are geared towards engineers

[00:24:41] Charli: Mm-hmm

[00:24:41] Ridd: And I think that it's a potentially like a little bit different when you're gearing things towards a designer more

[00:24:47] And so I'd love to hear like how you actually went from 0 to 1 on that understanding

[00:24:53] Charli: So I got my first beginnings in HTML and CSS through MySpace through customizing MySpace [00:25:00] profiles and like building out little custom music players and things like that obviously then I had to go a lot further than that I had one class in university on Interactive Design I believe and it was coding things in HTML, CSS and Flash which is a completely irrelevant skill now

[00:25:18] When I got really serious about coding is when I first met Nathan the CEO of Convert Kit and he offered me a job he said we need to hire a marketing designer. I think you're great would love to hire you, You need to learn to code

[00:25:30] because

[00:25:31] Ridd: wow

[00:25:31] Charli: I don't wanna hire a dev onto the team I need you to be able to build the pages that you design

[00:25:36] And I was like okay I got this Let let me figure this out

[00:25:41] Ridd: That's cool

[00:25:42] Charli: Yeah it was cool It was it was a good push. I'm glad that the team has evolved to a point where we do now have a developer on the team to handle this

[00:25:49] Especially as I feel like web frameworks have gotten way more complicated I could not do a single thing that our senior front end dev does now but Treehouse was my place to learn to code

[00:25:59] Ridd: Nice

[00:25:59] Charli: I [00:26:00] really enjoyed going through their courses

[00:26:01] I learn best by doing and so being told this is how to do something and then here's a little exercise to go ahead and do it was super valuable for me to like learn a thing implement it

[00:26:12] That's how it gets into my brain and I understand how it works

[00:26:15] There's plenty of courses out there I think designers to learn to code

[00:26:18] You don't need something that is focused specifically on design I think looking at something that focuses on building out a website naturally there's a design side to it but yeah it's it's useful

[00:26:30] Ridd: I love that you said MySpace For me it was Tumblr like I I

[00:26:33] Charli: Nice

[00:26:33] Ridd: worked on a little music blog and that was like my first time and I remember the days where I just like broke the whole thing or there's just like some random string at the top of my page

[00:26:41] Half the time I don't know if it was actually working but I did learn a thing or two so

[00:26:45] Charli: oh yeah There's been many a word press Site that I have like turned into just like blank white screen

[00:26:51] Ridd: Yes

[00:26:51] Charli: Missed slash or incorrect quote mark

Importance of knowing how to code

[00:20:58] Charli: really

[00:20:58] Ridd: designer and like creative director

[00:20:59] [00:21:00] I was impressed And so can you talk a little bit more about like why that is so important for you and maybe even a little bit about how you went about growing in that area

[00:21:54] you don't have to code it yourself but you should understand the language at least be able to read it so that you [00:22:00] can better communicate with the dev

[00:22:35] Charli: Absolutely

[00:22:35] And the better you understand that the more informed your choices will be

[00:23:02] that's a really important part of of producing work that is in that mix of art and science like we talked about

[00:23:22] Charli: Yeah

[00:23:36] Charli: Yes

[00:24:07] But I look at Webflow and I'm like okay this is the HTML and this is the CSS

[00:24:12] You know we've got the panel that you add things and then the panel where you style things things

[00:24:16] Ridd: Okay

[00:24:16] Charli: and that's like how I wrapped my head around Webflow

[00:24:18] So it's interesting to hear that Webflow can help you wrap your head around code

[00:24:23] Ridd: Yeah

[00:24:24] What was your journey like then, once you realized okay I want to become more technical I want to understand the basics of front end, where did you look?

[00:24:32] Because I'm always trying to encourage designers to do this but it always feels like the resources out there are geared towards engineers

[00:24:41] Charli: Mm-hmm

[00:24:41] Ridd: And I think that it's a potentially like a little bit different when you're gearing things towards a designer more

[00:24:47] And so I'd love to hear like how you actually went from 0 to 1 on that understanding

[00:25:30] because

[00:25:31] Ridd: wow

[00:25:31] Charli: I don't wanna hire a dev onto the team I need you to be able to build the pages that you design

[00:25:36] And I was like okay I got this Let let me figure this out

[00:25:41] Ridd: That's cool

[00:25:42] Charli: Yeah it was cool It was it was a good push. I'm glad that the team has evolved to a point where we do now have a developer on the team to handle this

[00:25:49] Especially as I feel like web frameworks have gotten way more complicated I could not do a single thing that our senior front end dev does now but Treehouse was my place to learn to code

[00:25:59] Ridd: Nice

[00:25:59] Charli: I [00:26:00] really enjoyed going through their courses

[00:26:01] I learn best by doing and so being told this is how to do something and then here's a little exercise to go ahead and do it was super valuable for me to like learn a thing implement it

[00:26:12] That's how it gets into my brain and I understand how it works

[00:26:15] There's plenty of courses out there I think designers to learn to code

[00:26:30] Ridd: I love that you said MySpace For me it was Tumblr like I I

[00:26:33] Charli: Nice

[00:26:41] Half the time I don't know if it was actually working but I did learn a thing or two so

[00:26:45] Charli: oh yeah There's been many a word press Site that I have like turned into just like blank white screen

[00:26:51] Ridd: Yes

[00:26:51] Charli: Missed slash or incorrect quote mark

Copywriting at ConvertKit

[00:26:54] Ridd: Yes Yeah so I'd love to transition a little bit and talk about copy [00:27:00] actually and

[00:27:01] Charli: Okay

[00:27:02] Ridd: I'm curious maybe to start how did you arrive and refine what the tone and voice of ConvertKit copy should be

[00:27:11] Charli: Yeah so this is actually something that I can't take credit for We have a fantastic head of content on our team who has been at the company longer than me and she was first in I think content creator role and editor role. And so she's guiding our voice and tone obviously with my input now as as creative director.

[00:27:29] We work together along with our product marketing manager to define our brand personality and so the voice and tone like lives up to that

[00:27:36] again I think because we're a team of creators the voice and tone of ConvertKit has kind of been a group effort of all of the people who are writing various things for ConvertKit over the years but we have Danny luckily to like bring it all together and and edit things with the voice and tone in mind

[00:27:54] Ridd: You talk about this struggle that we all face which is like does the copy come first or does the design [00:28:00] come first which is something that is touches every single project that I work on specifically cuz we don't have a dedicated like UX copywriter on the team And your answer surprise me a little bit because you you say that actually it's the content that comes first

[00:28:17] Can you explain a little bit about what you mean by that?

[00:28:20] Charli: So when people get into thinking like oh do we write all the copy and then design it or do we create a design and then write copy to fill it, I think we're kind of missing a key starting point for both of those things which is the content

[00:28:33] What is it that we wanna express through the copy and through the design?

[00:28:36] Like what message do we need to leave people with and answering that the way I see content is not necessarily specific words not necessarily any specific content blocks or or design patterns but it's what do we need to communicate

[00:28:51] We can figure out the exact words later, we can figure out the exact layout of the words later but we need to know what it is that that we wanna show [00:29:00] to people who are looking at this page

[00:29:01] And so that's why I think that starting with content is important

[00:29:04] If you start with copy then perhaps you're writing something that isn't well optimized for a reader to flow through in in a design perspective. And if you start with design first then you're creating something pretty without any substance cuz you don't actually know what it is you're trying to communicate

[00:29:19] if you start with content then both copy and design can sort of happen simultaneously and feeding off each other because you're both working from the same base of what is the message that we need to communicate

[00:29:30] Ridd: Who owns that first content outline at ConvertKit?

[00:29:34] Charli: Ooh That depends on the project We have different owners and depending on different capacities as well

[00:29:39] if it's gonna be a feature page it would be our product marketing manager who determines like this is how we position our product to best appeal to creators and like best explain our feature.

[00:29:48] There's been many times that I've been the one to create that content doc because I had a clear vision for it

[00:29:54] And it sometimes really helps if you are the one feeling passionate about the project and feel like you understand it to get [00:30:00] the words on the page that other people can contribute and give feedback to and say oh I don't think we should communicate this It should be more like this instead

[00:30:07] But you've made a start and you've gotten past the blank page fear to keep the team moving

[00:30:13] So yeah it it depends is my answer

[00:30:16] Ridd: Like any good designer it depends

[00:30:18] Charli: Yeah it depends