MISTAKE 1. IF YOUR DESIGN FIRM'S BACK STORY IS LACKING IN EXCITEMENT, MAKE SURE YOU EMBELLISH IT OR MAKE SOMETHING UP.

Before:

JB: Where did you guys come from, how did you meet, and how did you decide to form Volume?

AB: Eric and I met through a mutual friend almost 10 years ago, and then 3 years later taught together at CCAC [now CCA, The California College of the Arts]. Through this teaching experience we discovered we had similar ideas about design.

EH: The day I was let go from my last freelance gig before the economy crashed, I bumped into Adam at a bar. He had also just left his job at Mauk Design.

AB: I'd been there for six years.

EH: We just started talking about what we might do next and met up later to discuss the possibility of working together.

AB: Our approaches complemented each other, and this is what really made the partnership take off.

THE BRIDGE FUND annual report initially appears to be a simple two-color narrative, but once one tears the perforated signatures it reveals beautiful four-color imagery of the people, places, and results of THE BRIDGE FUND'S work. The cover is handmade Tibetan paper with a woodblock print.

AB: Eric was teaching design to displaced kids in Turkmenistan, I had been assisting the team of Doctors Without Borders [DWB] in the same country, designing medicine labels on the spot as they were needed. We met when Eric had the group of the DWB doctors come to his class. It was there we realized we had similar ideas about design.

EH: The day my class graduated from their studies, I bumped into Adam at a local opium den. His DWB circuit had finished after the smallpox vaccination program ended.

AB: I'd been over there for six years.

EH: After smoking a few pipes and having hallucinations of purple elephants and cubist-like typography for over three hours, we just started talking about what we might do next and met up later back in the States (after we had both been debriefed by the government) to discuss the possibility of working together.

AB: Our approaches complemented each other, and this is what really made the partnership take off.

Much better. Truth is relative.

MISTAKE 2. COHERENCE IS GOOD. BLABBING ALONG FILLING ALL THE SILENCES UNTIL YOU CAN SORT OUT WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT SHOULD BE AVOIDED.

JB: A name like Volume I think is fine, but there was a period of time-I don't know if it was because of the dot-com thing-when there was just a vibe in the air and there were a lot of naming conventions going on.

EH: I liked the multiple possibilities of what the word volume could mean-volume and sound, volume and amount, volume in terms of, you know, your physical volume. We also took to it because our work really doesn't adhere to a certain kind of style. We collaborate with clients and get into their "volume" level, and I think that the ability to kind of change volume is something that we offer our potential collaborators and also, it's like the idea of design being more than just 2D, you know, the idea of 3D not only in physical states or exhibits, but sort of a full-bodied experience, you know, the conceptual story telling focuses that we like to put into our work.

Note how this response could have easily been summed up in one sentence, instead of ballooning to almost soliloquy length, and hardly of Shakespearean quality.

Instead:

EH: I liked the multiple possibilities of what the word volume could imply—sound, amount, dimensionality. Our work doesn’t really adhere to a certain visual style—we collaborate with clients and determine their “volume” level.

AB: It’s also about the idea of cross-media design—we do 2D, 3D, and 4D work, and incorporate strong conceptual and storytelling elements.