What is creative concept design – and why is it important?
Summary
A new job always brings new opportunities and plenty of exciting things to learn. This fall, I’ve had the honour of joining IR Partners and a team of top professionals as a creative concept designer. In this role, I get to apply everything I’ve learned along the way and continuously develop new ideas. The first few weeks have been fast-paced, and I’ve jumped right into projects to create new ways of telling our clients’ stories.
What is creative concept design?
My background is in visual design, but there’s always a lot of conceptual work behind it. I think of a visual designer as, above all, a problem-solver. To visualise content, it must first be shaped into something understandable. You must know how to ask the right questions and then find the answers to them. Visual storytelling is never just about embellishing content: it is always strategic thinking that, at its best, has far-reaching effects.
In concept design, you get to create the big picture while also bringing the idea all the way down to the practical level. Both must be integrated and work toward the same goal. We cannot tell a different story about ourselves at different touchpoints: instead, the story must be consistent across the board. Condensing the story is often the most challenging phase of storytelling, and that’s where an outsider’s perspective comes in handy. When you’re too close to the action, you can’t see the big picture amid the daily grind. Instead, your attention is focused on solving practical challenges. At its best, the concept is so simple that it feels downright self-evident and needs no explanation.
In my view, a brand is like a musical composition. If you think of a page of text, it’s hard to memorise. But if you think of a song, the situation changes completely. The lyrics come to life through mood, melody, and rhythm. Suddenly, you can remember the whole page without any trouble. This is what a brand does for companies, services, and products—it makes them recognisable and memorable. Brand makes strategic thinking visible and real to customers.
… and how can this help our clients?
In my own role, I believe my most important task is to help my clients succeed in their work. This always requires a comprehensive understanding of the client relationship, and I enjoy the fact that my work gives me a vantage point from which to observe what Finnish companies are up to these days.
A good example of the power of visuals is actually quite ordinary. When our team creates materials, the visuals always generate a lot of comments. Everyone has an opinion on them, regardless of their job description. This shows just how powerful visuals are at evoking emotions. Even the finest gem of content won’t shine if its presentation hasn’t been thought through to the very end. Therefore, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a trivial matter that isn’t worth shaping into a polished and credible form.
In addition to concept design, my other passion is data visualisation, which strongly follows the same principles. Every element must have a rationale and a reason for being visualised, especially in content that is often information-rich. The most important task of infographics is to shape complex matters into an understandable form—and that is mental work at its best. I always say that there’s a little engineer inside me who’s constantly working with proportions, order, and connections. And let me also mention what everyone always gets excited about: I also enjoy working with PowerPoint. If any medium is underrated, it is that one.
It feels really good to have a full plate of work on my desk. I’m looking forward to the coming winter and collaborating with this amazing team and our interesting clients.
See you soon,
Sini
Blog written by: Sini Ruuskanen
