As senior vice president of Creative at Mohawk Fine Papers, Laura embodies all of the traits that all of us dream of finding in a client. She’s smart and creative, has great ideas and doesn’t mind if you steal them. She’s patient and trusting, fair and measured. Behind the scenes, in the rough and tough world of a paper mill, Laura understands her multiple audiences, knows when and what to tell them and how to balance creative freedom with hard numbers. Clients can often seem like they are speaking Icelandic and making decisions based on whims. We all wonder why one firm was chosen over another or what a client really expects. After some prodding and begging, I convinced Laura to spill the beans from the other side of the presentation.

SA: Laura, let’s start with what you actually do. I know you hire designers and make paper swatchbooks and promos, but what about the rest of your job?

LS: Is your Icelandic translator here? Hiring designers is actually a small part of what I do. I manage an incredibly capable in-house team—10 people if you count the intern, more if you count outsourced marketing support—who handle everything relating to PR, marketing communication, advertising, product positioning, the web, printing, signage, trade shows, events and national design sponsorships. In addition to that, since the acquisition of the IP Fine Papers brands in 2005, all of our internal processes have been overhauled. Lately we’ve been working with the IT group to redesign internal computer systems that relate to publishing product information and reporting.

We don’t have a formal organization chart in our company, so each of us wakes up every day and does the smartest thing we can think of. Our team is complemented by an equally caffeinated group dedicated to product and another focused on the environment. We support their initiatives and try to give structure to their ideas so they can be brought to market effectively. Our team is always involved at some level in product development, research, strategy and selling. We bring designers in at various points along the line in a project, but it’s our breadth of engagement at Mohawk that allows us to keep the process focused and bring the right level of information to the design part of the process.

Forty posters for the Yale School of Architecture: When Mohawk learned that Michael Bierut of Pentagram would be receiving the AIGA medal in 2006, they wanted to do something to honor their work together over the years, as well as Bierut's efforts on behalf of AIGA and the design community. This small book is the result; it is black and white, like the ten years' worth of posters he designed for the school. Attendees at the Associated Gala received this book as a gift. Copies are now available through Winterhouse Editions, with profits going to support the Winterhouse Award for Design Writing & Criticism.

SA: I’m going to ask the hardest question first. You see promotional pieces and portfolios from an enormous number of designers. How do you decide whom you’re going to work with on a specific project?

LS: If the type looks like I could have set it myself, they’re out. Times Roman, out. Unintentional clichés, out. Plagiarism, out. Irony, if I don’t get it, out. Bad writing, out. Is a designer good at developing stories out of thin air? Do they love information design? Is their attitude in sync with the intended audience? Do they avoid jargon? Is the work memorable? Is the work original? Is it too far ahead of the audience? Is it always the same, regardless of the client? Do they respect all of our audiences? Do they know how to work with uncoated paper? Are they curious? Are they interesting? Can we have fun and still get the job done? Do they make us look smarter than we are?

In the end, it’s a terrifying leap of faith. Each project is so different—with unique audiences, information requirements, production budgets. I believe one of the most important things a design client can do is understand the true capability of the firm they’re hiring and to match that capability to the project. Get it wrong and it’s like a bad marriage. Endless changes. Arguments about the budget. Thinly veiled disdain on all sides. If you get it right, then everything sails through. Few revisions. Everyone’s a genius.

SA: It’s easy to think that if my work is cool, or clever, or aesthetically innovative that clients will, of course, be jumping over each other to hire me. But, unfortunately, the real world doesn’t work that way. Do you find that designers can put too much priority on what their work looks like?

LS: I actually think how the work looks is really important. Particularly with a product like ours. Design details and production excellence matter to our audience. What we deliver has to be incredibly well made. And if it’s not, I’ll get a phone call within hours of distributing a new piece.

That having been said—if we’re talking about paper promotions—everything in the process is important. Designers need to do the homework and get outside their own preconceived notions about the audience. Designing for a design audience is not the same as designing for yourself. Research. Back up your assertions. We operate at a pretty fast pace and while each project is important, a project manager will have several projects operating simultaneously. It’s important that deadlines are met. We also bring a lot of production expertise to the project and are willing to research almost anything if we agree that it’s interesting. Yet our budgets are set out clearly up front, and we have a great process in place to ensure that we come in on time and on budget. Designers have control over the architecture of the project, so we don’t have a lot of sympathy for designers who overdesign a project and then whine about the budget or deadline.

SA: When I’ve judged competitions, a common event is the judging of paper promotions. Let’s face it: Some are gosh-darn awful, but others are remarkable. When I’ve voted for a paper promo, one of the other judges will argue, “Come on, it’s just a paper promo. You can do anything you want.” But the operative word in paper companies is companies. What are some of the biggest misconceptions about designing and producing a paper promo?

LS: For many years, it was not uncommon [for us] to receive visual essays on subjects like toy trains, ducks or vintage fruit labels from people I’d never met, with the earnest hope that I would use the work as a paper promotion. Pick a paper, any paper. Thankfully, that practice has diminished—I suppose with the decline in the number of mills—or maybe designers are just busier now.

As you know, Sean, you can’t do “anything you want” in a paper promotion. You have to appeal to a range of audiences, from just-out-of-school designers, to print sales people, to merchant sales guys who golf. We’re not a publisher, and a paper promotion is not a book—it’s a conversation starter. Done right, a paper promotion can energize an entire channel, giving sales people a reason for a call, creating opportunities for events, bringing a product or brand to life. Oh, and I gave up on design competitions a long time ago!

Mohawk ad series: High readership scores bear out the strategy recommended for an image advertising campaign developed by VSA Partners. The sophisticated yet whimsical illustrations by Klas Fahlen and thoughtful copy challenge conventional thinking about paper and the paper industry, reinforcing Mohawk's approach to the business.

SA: You’ve pulled together a powerhouse stable of designers. You’ve worked with the best, from Pentagram, VSA, Vanderbyl Design, the Valentine Group, Willoughby Design ... almost every well-known name in the country. First, was this a plan? And secondly, wouldn’t it have been much cheaper and faster to hire Carol’s Country Copy Shoppe in Albany? Why take the effort to create this group?

LS: Hey, don’t knock Carol! My first job was at a quick printer in Albany. … We actually work extensively with a very talented local designer, Jennifer Wilkerson, and a number of local printers. However, working with world-class design talent has been one of the great joys of my job. It’s also a great way to build brand affinity throughout the community. The more interesting question is, how do we keep our identity intact, working with designers who are generally retained by clients who want to reposition their brands?

SA: OK, so how do you keep your brand intact?

LS: I believe that a brand is more than design execution. In our case, it’s about being interesting to the design community. One of the ways we do that is by working with amazing people who interest our audience. We start by keeping identity projects with Pentagram New York. We’ve worked with them so long that they can read our minds. After that, we branch out and use leading designers for specific projects or brands, depending on the attitude we want to communicate. Good designers are actually incredibly careful about situating their work within the larger context of the brand.

SA: You have a deep and long-standing relationship with AIGA. You’re a National Sponsor, and you fund events and exhibitions regionally across the country. Why does Mohawk think this is important?

LS: Supporting AIGA is essential to our business. We make a premium-branded product that must be specified for us to survive. For this we need a healthy, educated design community. Organizations like AIGA and trade journals like STEP are incredibly important to us. We began supporting AIGA back in the mid-’80s when it was clear that it was the one design organization that could speak for designers at a national level. As our lives have gotten more complex, faster and more computer-dependent, the need for community involvement and real human interaction has only increased. I honestly can’t understand why any designer wouldn’t want to be a member of AIGA—or why any supplier wouldn’t want to support the organization.

Sustainability promotion: Willoughby Design Group chose rich topical content to express Mohawk's environmental position in this promotion for Strathmore Script. Designed as carefully and economically as the messages inside, the book explores issues surrounding sustainable design and features profiles of six pioneering companies.

Mohawk environmental stewardship brochure: This piece by Jennifer Wilkerson, Aurora Design, draws visually from both earthy and human connections to communicate Mohawk's environmental position and practices to business decision makers, designers and printers.