The Back Story

The Secret Design Lab Until last week, a low-key group of designers operated under strict secrecy in a district of Vancouver occupied only by 3D printing companies and a Hydro substation. The policy: no press releases, no interviews, no fanfare. But that’s changing. Last week Carter Hales Design Lab announced that they had been nominated for the world’s most prestigious design award. Their entry: a bottle that is unlike anything anyone has ever seen. Many years ago I was the VP of Marketing at a small entertainment company. This company had bigger aspirations than most. My job was to guide the company through an IPO and establish a major brand. Everything went according to plan. Before anyone knew what had happened, Lions Gate went from a business plan to a major movie studio. Over the three year period it took to get everything launched, it was Lions Gate’s first annual report that took the most effort. I had strict orders from Hollywood to make sure someone great designed it. This came straight from Peter Guber’s mouth while he ate Famous Amos cookies in his crazy-ass office on the Sony lot. After searching around for a great design firm, I hired Ross and Sean. They worked at a design firm called Hangar 18. I’m not sure I even knew their last names. Long story short: The annual report won awards. Lions Gate won Academy Awards. I moved to New York. I forgot all about Ross and Sean. Cut to 2016: I’m back in Vancouver. One of my clients mentions he knows some great designers. Cool. Love to meet them, I said. An e-mail goes out. I check out their website. I see they did LaGuardia’s website. They have XOXOLAT chocolate as a client. Lots of awards. Everything I click on is world class. Huh. These guys are good. An e-mail comes back. It’s Ross Hales. He reminds me with all sorts of good-natured-positive-enthusiasm that they were the team that worked on the Lions Gate launch. Oh man, they must think I am such an idiot for not remembering their last names was all I could think as I rolled my eyes at myself. Sean Carter with a bottle of Four Fox Saké, a new luxury brand based out of Hong Kong I accept an invitation to drop by. It’s a weird feeling seeing them again after so many years. I’m in their 3,000 square foot vast open white space. It’s the Carter Hales Design Lab. In front of me are Ross Hales and Sean Carter. Ross Hales (left) and Sean CarterIt doesn’t matter where your airport is based or where your office is located, this is a design team that has been nominated for the world’s best package design award. Trust me: you want them. THE PREMISE Correct me if you disagree (e-mail) but it seems to me that when you hire a design firm you are hiring three things: the work, the people and the future. Maybe I have the order wrong? In any case, the work and the people give you a pretty good sense of the future. Which is to say if you don’t like the people but you love the work, that is potentially tricky. What if you don’t work well together? What if they won’t budge? What if they ram their small typefaces down your old throat? The other scenario is that the people are great but the work sucks. Hiring under these circumstances is generally reserved for family. Or donors. But if the people are nice and the work is great? Great! In this scenario, predicting future success doesn’t get any easier, but it does get more comfortable. What do I mean? Lots of things can still go wrong: budgets, timelines, scope of work, yada yada but with everyone on the same friendly page a lot of the kinks get worked out with lower amounts of stress and capital. And there are always a kink or two with big projects. Upstairs at the Carter Hales Design LabMe: So, what have you guys been up to since Lions Gate?Sean: Aw man, a lot has happened. (laughs)Me: It looks like it! How long have you had this spaceship?Ross: A little more than four years.Me: Nice. Suits you guys. Me: Hey, would you mind terribly if I interview you and then exploit it for my own purposes on Medium?Sean: No problem. Of course we don’t mind. Go ahead! (laughs)Ross: I’m not sure I would totally agree with that. (laughs) Me: Great. Thanks. Hey, what’s up with all the secrecy? Sean: We had a non-compete so we sort of adopted this cone of silence that never went away. Me: Sounds awful. Good thing that’s over! It is over now, right?Ross: Yes. Our non-compete ended in 2012.Me: Oh perfect. ROSS HALES The second name of Carter Hales has more of a claim to fame than most. Ross Hales was the drummer for a counter-culture band called the Animal Slaves. He also recorded with Sarah McLachlan prior to her reign over the Vancouver music scene on the album Touch, now a collector’s item. Ross Hales (1986) in a scene from the Animal Slaves video “Ruin Me”There are a lot of things I will say about Ross Hales but one of those things is not that he holds himself out to be an expert in the world of design and advertising. He doesn’t. But Ross doesn’t hold himself out to be an expert in, say, turning an invisible Rubik’s cube in his hands, either. Ross Hales: when it comes to design you can’t discount life experienceThe fact that Ross Hales is a partner in a highly successful design firm but does not believe he is an expert in design only highlights his most obvious quality: that he is totally self-deprecating! And everybody knows that self-deprecating people are wonderful people. Especially if they are Canadian. So to say that Ross Hales is a self-deprecating Canadian would be exactly right. He is also wonderful to be around. Ross Hales (August 2016)This seems like a good time to sum up: We know that Carter Hales is a design “lab” (as in “laboratory”) and that half of Carter Hales (The Hales half) is:- a drummer- self-deprecating- Canadian- wonderful to be around Part of me would love to just leave it there, but there is quite a bit more to say: Running. Cycling. And the gym.What most people don’t know about Ross is that as a kid he absolutely loved Jacques Cousteau (Loved him!). In fact, Ross loved Jacques Cousteau so much that Ross would go to work for Aqua Lung, a scuba gear company owned by Jacques Cousteau. Not once. But twice. Somewhere along the way, Ross also pursued a career in stage acting. I am not sure why I chose to italicize “stage acting”, but it seems fitting. To juxtapose it against, say, television acting. According to Ross, He wasn’t a very good actor. Disillusioned as an actor, Ross decided to go to University and get a degree. Except that he while attended University full-time, he also worked for Aqua Lung and a design firm at the same time. Somehow he managed to earn scholarship level grades during the four years he was at SFU earning his communications degree. Ross is a man with energy! (10 triathlons worth, to be precise). Sean Carter, Ross’s partner and the creative director of the design lab, sums Ross up the best: Chums since 1997: Ross has charm and charisma! And: he’s a great listener.And now, dear and gentle reader, it is time to meet Mr. Carter. His soft-spoken nature does not dim the intensity of his creative drive. It kind of scares me! SEAN CARTER One of the most award-winning design firms in Canada is headed up by a mastermind who grew up an autodidact. When I knew him during the Lions Gate days, Sean was so into design; it was everything to him. He didn’t want to chat about the movie business like everyone else did. He wanted to talk about design. Which is great if you’re a client! But I was curious to know if Sean had changed after so long. He hasn’t. Lucky for him he’s funny as hell. Making a mastermind I sat down with Sean to figure out what sort of childhood was responsible for creating an adult like him. I was surprised at what he told me. Sean Carter was a very productive child. At seven years old he had two paper routes. The bags were so heavy he couldn’t carry them both at the same time. His mother raised him and his brother on her own, so the paper routes helped pay the bills. At eight years old he got his hands on a camera (through completely legal means but I won’t tell you how exactly, you can ask him yourself). From that point forward he always carried a camera. And naturally he decided he wanted to develop his own pictures. To experiment. At eight years old. Naturally. The turning point At just nine years old, Sean bought himself a darkroom with his paper route money. I mean, is that rare or what? I use rare instead of “weird” because he’s not one of those weird creative types. And when I say he is intense, he is. But he’s also super funny. So rare still applies. He’s pretty much like the picture below. Sean Carter (August 2016)I don’t know any other person who had a darkroom at nine years old. But I’ve never met anyone like Sean Carter before. Sean Carter: I always saw the world visually.At around the same time that Ross Hales was pounding drums for a counter-culture rock band, Sean Carter was attending an Art and Merchandising program at Vancouver Community College. It wasn’t his first choice, but he quickly fell in love with the combination of graphic and interior design. Upon graduation, Sean earned a Salazar Award for having one of the best portfolios in the province. He thought that was his ticket to fame. He remembers: I thought I had made it. This was it. Top three in the Province. I’m going to be something! With some level of self-described cockiness, he sent promotional materials to all of the big agencies and design firms. Not a single one called back. No response. Sean Carter, Design DirectorUndaunted be the silence of rejection, Sean took a Summer position at an amusement park. He was the new visual mechandising manager. The new job involved more walking than visual merchandising. For fourty days in a row, he walked from one corner of the vast property to the next to check on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle displays. At the end of his first week his shoes had holes. During his long walks in the summer heat, he resolved to use his money to buy a Mac and put himself in business. The day after his Summer job ended, he went and bought a Mac Classic. If someone wasn’t going to put him to good use, he’d figure it out on his own. Now 21 and armed with a computer and an arts diploma, Sean landed his first client — the Mandarin Hotel. His nascent career quickly came into focus. Before long, The Delta Group and Wickanninish Inn (still a client) joined his growing roster. Now generating revenue through a portfolio he could actually sell to prospective clients, he sought out new partners. It was time to grow. I’ve never worked at another design firm. I‘ve always had my own firm. I like to figure things out on my own. It’s been four years since we opened, so I think it’s time we took on something massive. We’re ready. Sean has won many, many awards (approximately 180). I asked him which one was the best. The best award? Hopefully we’ll win one next month! That would be the best award. No question. You actually think you have a chance at winning the coveted Pentaward for Best Package Design in the World? If we were to win a Pentaward…well. All the great design firms in the world have won one. It’s a bit like winning Wimbledon. So we’ll have to see if we get to the finals or watch them. Either way, we’ll be there, and we’re proud of that. It’s still a month away so we’re all crossing our fingers until then. Good luck in Shanghai, Carter Hales Design Lab. — — — — — — — — — — — — — Author: Steve Yanor @skyalphabet Follow Carter Hales on Twitter: @carterhaleslab