We recently connected with Justin Dauer and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Justin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?
Swedish culture—in personal and professional spheres of existence—has had a profound impact upon me.
It’s no coincidence that the last time I felt fully connected to a company’s values and culture was when I was the Director of Design at a Swedish creative agency. They employed rituals and practices unlike I’d ever seen in the U.S. market: slowing down, to pause with intent. True respect and egalitarianism. People-first in actions, design, and output. As I began designing the USP of my own consultancy, it was my chance to feel that connection once again—and design the environment in which I’d thrive best.
Across design leadership, healthy culture advocacy, and working with internal design teams on craft, I infused those Swedish cultural sensibilities into the consultancy’s DNA—I call it Anomali by Design. ‘Anomali’ is Swedish for…well, you can figure that one out.
Humble, practical design leadership amongst constant global flux can be challenging to find—often, an anomaly. Anomali by Design’s mission is to make it plentiful, to bring it to people and organizations who want to embrace real design, and true connection, as part of their mission. After all: what is design if not ‘connection’ made manifest?
This stretches my legs across all of my passions and aligns directly with what fulfills me most:
• working with organizations on craft and design, employing all-living-things-first methodologies
• defining, articulating, and promoting the value of design with organizations, aligning it to their core practices
• coaching and mentoring design leaders to be successful amidst an ever-evolving business landscape
• consulting on healthy culture within business to translate values to actions, defining measurable outcomes, and supporting teams agnostic of the remote or in-person seat
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Design is in my DNA, as the fascination toward visual problem solving has been the driving force in my life since high school when I first began to assemble a portfolio. Graduating the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a degree in Visual Communications at a time when ‘web designer’ was a fledgling career path, the infusion of design with the digital landscape has never stopped fueling my evolution.
25 years later, I’m an internationally renown design leader, author, and speaker. You’ll find me often engaging with the AIGA’s speaking events, interviewed in Forbes magazine and Medium’s “Forge” publication, and penning articles for Aquent, CEO World Magazine, and A List Apart. I speak internationally on culture and design, including keynotes at the UXPA International conference, Midwest UX, and St. Louis Design Week. I’m also the writer of the celebrated books “Creative Culture” and “In Fulfillment: The Designer’s Journey.”
Immediately previous to building my consultancy, I was a VP of Design at CVS Health. Within the scale of a Fortune 5 corporation, I was able to build a human-centered design organization from the ground up as it aligned to their benefits administration ecosystem and products.
At its core, Anomali by Design collaborates with organizations in a consultant, advisory, or hands-on capacity on product, UX, and design toward enterprise-scale systems. In tandem, I strongly believe that the values we employ in how we treat one another (culture) must also be employed in how we create (craft). To that end, Anomali by Design also offers a product designed to help organizations navigate employee disconnection and disengagement, called ’21st Century Leadership: Connection & Engagement.’ Leveraging the Make Meaningful Work platform, ’21st Century Leadership: Connection & Engagement’—a bespoke learning program—helps organizations navigate / address / rise to the occasion of this disconnection, in step with laser-focused outcomes and trackable metrics.
In this way—via hands-on design, design leadership, or at the cultural level—Anomali by Design leverages the same set of values to ensure ‘connection’ is at the heart of what we do.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The opportunity to consistently evolve—and the gift of being challenged—are aspects of this profession that I cherish greatly. But it takes leveraging humility to able to utilize either boon.
Agnostic of accolades, the tools we’re using, or devoid of rushed procedure, the humble connection with those on the receiving end of what we’re producing, and with those doing the producing, is imperative toward quality and evolution.
“Humble connection” is such a vital notion for a designer—yes, we may have years of applicable design study under our belt. Or the focused lab sessions from a UX bootcamp. Perhaps a lovely monogrammed portfolio of our work. But all that said: experience does not equal expert. If we’re always students of our craft, we are also always making ourselves available to evolve.
As soon as we close our minds via an inner monologue of ‘knowing it all’, or branding ourselves a ‘#thoughtleader’ on social media, the designer we are is our final form. The designer we can be, will never exist.
It’s a gift to be challenged on our assumptions as it tears down self- imposed barriers, yielding greater connection. We get there by being perpetual students of our craft, always open to learning and evolving.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
My hands-on design effectively “put me on the map,” so to speak, earlier in my career. Being published in design pubs internationally, and being aligned to online design e-zines as a contributor, was beneficial toward securing roles. I’m an incredibly ambitious person, and have never stopped pushing my own advancement—through quality of work, identification and utilization of my values, and taking on roles within organizations with more and more responsibility.
I stumbled into team building and management (in a player-coach capacity, which is a challenge unto itself) fairly early in my career, and have since built design teams, and entire organizations, at varied scales since. With demonstrative outcomes and results in step with those facets of my career, I think any healthy reputation within the design field is a direct result.
I also strive to connect with designers and leaders via international speaking engagements and the books I’ve written—leveraging lessons learned from my journey to assist them in their own respective evolution.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://anomalibydesign.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pseudoroom/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pseudoroom/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/pseudoroom
- Other: Dauer & Orvet Practical Design Leadership Podcast: https://designleadership.transistor.fm “In Fulfillment: The Designer’s Journey”: https://in-fulfillment.com “Creative Culture”: http://www.the-culturebook.com Mastodon: https://typo.social/@pseudoroom Threads: https://www.threads.net/@pseudoroom
Image Credits
Ayano Hisa