Please give us a brief summary of your career life after graduating from IDEA School of Design in 2015 from your initial hire in Vancouver to your current work in California

During my final year at IDEA, I started interviewing at agencies and a couple of months before our grad show, I began working with 123w; an idea and design collective in Vancouver. I was allowed to be away most days, as long as I hit all project deadlines and was there to present—that was definitely my most challenging and sleepless semester of IDEA. Upon graduating, I was offered an indefinite full-time freelance contract with 123w, helping them win new clients and bring a strong digital perspective to their branding and advertising projects.

As 123w continued to grow, I dropped my other freelance work and joined the team full-time as a designer, mainly working under Jeff Harrison. Some of my favourite days were when someone would come to me with an out-there digital idea and we'd try to figure out how and who could make it. I spent 3 years working with the incredibly talented team at 123w, working with a ton of great clients like Vancouver Art Gallery, Hockey Canada, Vancouver Aquarium, Douglas Coupland, Okanagan Spring Brewery, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and many more in collaboration with partner agencies and a vast amount of freelancers from all over the world to help launch over 25 projects. It was a constant hustle, but I owe my success to that entire team for teaching me so much.

In late 2017, I noticed an ambiguous tweet that BASIC® (a brand strategy and digital design agency I had followed for years) was thinking about opening another studio in California. I wrote a very unorthodox email and ended up landing a chat with the CEO, Matt Faulk. After a few interviews, a design test, and a grueling Visa process, I moved to California in 2018 and was there for day 1 in a new BASIC® office embedded at Google. We now have a team of about 40 working alongside their hardware teams on Google’s annual October product launch and to continue building the new Google Store. 

What type of projects are you currently working on?

For the last year-ish, we’ve had the chance to introduce the world to the Pixel Slate tablet, new Pixel phones, Google Home, Google Nest Hub, and other Made by Google products by elevating their digital retail and brand experiences from content to design on a global scale. The number of talented people I’ve had the chance to meet and work with on those projects has been incredible. Unfortunately, we are bound by our NDA and can’t show what we’re working on, but here’s a video of some work we did for the Store last year (below), and you can see some of it live at store.google.com. 

In March 2019, I transferred from the BASIC® at Google team to BASIC®’s new HQ in San Diego where I continue to work on new Google initiatives as well as similar projects for clients like Coach and Airbnb. You can learn more about BASIC® by checking out our Culture Manual. 

Tell us about the awards you won at IDEA or after

While in IDEA, I was lucky enough to be featured in the RGD Student Awards (x2), Canadian Regional Design Awards “Redgees” (x3), and the GDC Salazar Awards.

Following IDEA have been Webby Awards (x3), Awwwards, Carte Blanche For Creatives (Grand Prize), One Show (Merit), Communication Arts (x2), and the ADCC Awards.

What are some of the more memorable highlights from your time at IDEA School of Design?

I think something I will always remember now, that I wasn’t aware of at the time, was the freedom. When you are in school, you get a lot of wide-open projects. You get the chance to really shape who you are as a designer or illustrator or whatever. IDEA does such a good job of introducing you to new mediums and pushing you to find what’s yours. I graduated as a digital designer and art director, while the person sitting beside me became an awesome tattoo artist; I think that’s rad. We also had an incredible trip to New York—I just can’t leave that out.

What tools do you use that weren't covered at IDEA?

A lot has changed since I was in IDEA. Sketch hadn’t gained traction within professional teams until about 2015, Adobe had just launched the XD beta during my grad year, and most prototyping tools didn’t exist. We didn’t learn much digital in IDEA at the time, but I used our design foundation and was extremely interested in the exponential growth in tech between 2010-2015. Digital is in a weird place and at a digital agency that works with different in-house design teams, we need to be pretty flexible and be able to switch between tools. My daily wheelhouse includes Sketch, Figma, After Effects, Principle, Photoshop, Bridge, Jira, and InVision. I rarely work on print these days and live in Google Slides/Docs.

Where do you see yourself in the next few years?

I am extremely fortunate and proud to be on this journey with BASIC®, we’re just getting started. In the last 2 years, I’ve really become interested in people and why they are interested in things. I love listening to what people are talking about and working on things I know people will connect with. These next few years will be focused on studying culture and learning the business of design, while continuing to refine my craft and who I am as a designer. I look forward to helping more of the world's largest and most beloved brands connect with culture.

What advice would you give to our current students or anyone considering applying for IDEA School of Design?

Talk to as many people in the industry as you can. Find out who works at the agencies you like and follow those designers, don’t just contact the info@ email. When you see a project you love, go find who made it. People get jobs through people. If an agency or studio doesn’t publicly post that they are hiring, but you think they are rad, reach out to one of the designers, ADs, or CDs (while respecting their time, of course) and ask if they could grab a coffee; or better yet, ask if they would take a look at your portfolio for some critique on how to get hired at an agency like theirs. You might get an email 6 months later. Also, do as much work as you can, literally start anywhere. A sure-fire way to get ahead is to work twice as hard as everybody else.

And listen to our podcast, Brandbeats.

Credits and contact

Photo of Garret by Hoon Moon.

BASIC @ Google is a branded experience design agency.

For more on Garret, see garretschauteet.fun or follow him on twitter / instagram / dribbble / are.na