For our designer David Reid, the R&R passion is what leads to successful client work. He has a love for chickens and illustrating wacky content, but these are only a few reasons why our main man David is so unique to our team.

SM: What is your role at Rhyme & Reason Design?

DR: I am a graphic designer, so I work with the design team to interpret research and requests from the accounts team to try and create design solutions that meet the needs of our clients.

SM: How did you come across Rhyme & Reason Design?

DR: I originally found R&R just through Googling actually when I was still in college looking for different agencies. I was looking to work for a larger company so I ended up getting a job at a different creative agency in Atlanta. During that time I was reaching out to different designers and just trying to build my network and that’s when I met Lauren, R&R’S Art Director. We planned a coffee meet up, and although I wasn’t looking for a new job at the time, Lauren started talking about the work culture and team atmosphere and I realized R&R had a lot of the things I has initially been looking for. Ultimately I realized having what I needed on a personal level and having a team behind me that I could learn from was more important to me than anything else, and the rest is history!

SM: Tell me about a project that surprised you?

DR: We were working on some collateral for a conference recently and some of the parts that needed to be designed had a ton of information on them and had to go on really tiny pieces of paper. A lot of the information didn’t really go together and I had no idea how it was going to work, but at the end of the day I just knew I had to get it done. By the time we had everything completed, I was really pleasantly surprised at how well we took this smorgasbord of information and made it really clean, readable and presentable. So I was really proud of that.

SM: Talk me through your creative process.

DR: I start by reading the research and request so I can familiarize myself with the project. Then, I’ll usually dive into visual research, which is where I get on the internet and look at what other people have done or are doing well with similar projects. After that, I’ll make my way to paper and just start pencil sketching as much as I can. So, if I’m doing an ad design, I like to do thumbnail sketches with the layout and figure out how to organize things on a very broad level. And then, once I have some ideas and my bearings, I’ll take it all to the computer and I will try to do a rough digital version, and I’ll just tweak it and play with it until it gets to a place where I’m happy with it. Usually somewhere in the process there is a little doubt, but that’s where I just push through or ask a member of our team to collaborate and get some outside opinions.

SM: Where does your inspiration for a new design come from?

DR: I think that depends on what kind of project I’m working on. Right now I’m in the middle of designing an ad and my inspiration for that is coming from magazine layouts; it’s copy or photography and how things are flowing together. For illustration work, I like to dig through the research and find some sort of nugget that is important to the client. There was a university we rebranded a while back and something that was important to them was a specific space on their campus. It really stood out to me the way everyone talked about how beautiful it was. I pulled that out into the mark that I presented—those kinds of things lead to really unique designs.

SM: What inspires you in life and design?

DR: In life, chickens and dogs. In design, I like to look at really weird illustrations. I like really rough, sketchy designs and wacky illustration stuff, so I follow a lot of artists who are pushing the boundaries in those kinds of ways.

SM: Why chickens?

DR: I don’t know! I think they’re funny and fat and cute and I think they’re smarter than most people think. They have an interesting way of living—just very content scuttling through the dirt. I’ve always been into birds. I had a friend in high school that got chickens and I didn’t realize that was something you could do without living on a farm. My art teacher at the time also had chickens so talking to the two of them about it I realized “oh I can do that.” So I asked my parents if I could get one and then decided I couldn’t just get one chicken so I got six! My brother helped me build the coop and that was a fun thing we all did that summer.

SM: What are you favorite types of design projects to work on?

DR: I really like our branding projects. The communities we do are really interesting. I like the idea of trying to dig through a bunch of research and figure out what this mark really needs to look like to represent this community. And then seeing it built out to this whole system is really cool. Other than that, any time I get to flex my illustration muscles and draw fun stuff, which is not always easy with client work, but when we do get to run free it’s really exciting.

SM: What do you enjoy most about being a designer.

DR: I like that it takes the creative expression side of who I am and marries it really well with my intellectual and analytical side. It provides structure to those artistic tendencies. I like that I can use this part of me that is expressive and interesting and it can benefit someone else and their needs. Design is one of the only fields where you can use these skills in that way. This thing that made you a weird kid growing up is now useful to the people who thought it was weird, which is kind of funny.

SM: How did you get into design?

DR: I was in advanced art classes growing up where we did very traditional pencil and charcoal drawings, so I always thought I was going to be an artist. When I got to college I didn’t think I could do that for a living so I was decided to go to school to teach English. After one semester, I missed art so much and hated being stuck behind a desk all day so I switched my major to graphic design. I was drawn to the fact that it gave me such a wide career path while at the same time letting me do what I loved.

SM: What do you think makes Rhyme & Reason Design unique from other agencies?

DR: I think R&R does a good job of managing clients’ expectations — so helping projects go successfully by explaining ahead of time this is what the process looks like, this is what’s realistic with this project and this is how we can help you with our expertise. That very honest, open and consistent relationship that we have with our clients, I think, is what leads to a lot of great success for us. R&R places a large emphasis on passion and fun and enjoying what we do, which is good, because that is clearly translated to our clients and gets them excited about their projects too.