I know but I simply had to 😀
So this week we had an awesome placement talk by Tim Potter who started Little Thunder an awesome design company that I would love to work for. I took a few notes on the company bellow that might come in handy once I apply.
Speaker: Tim Potter (previous IXD tutor and founder of the course) Started in 2013 at Little Thunder.
Director of Little Thunder
- Him and Gave started the company – they studied with Kyle and then started teaching at Ulster.
- Dan Gold previous intern now working full time (graduated last year).
Who they work with/skills
- Content creators, animators, etc…
- Clients they work with (mostly outside NI) EA, Visa, AON, Adobe, Ulster university, Instil, Department of Justice.
- Working outside of NI ironically so became easier to do with the pandemic and more online talking.
Problem solving first, design later
This is their ethos – follow this to better fit for their jobs.
- user research.
- prototyping.
- user experience.
- visual design and front end.
They integrate their design team into other companies – they are a contractor company but they become part of the companies team whilst working on a project with them. Facilitate digital product design for other companies.
It is not a waterfall methodology as this creates a real lack of consistency. They are involved in the work even after they hand in their work.
Case study
EA – How they designed an app to help EA grow their 16000 + employee base.
- The problem – Recruitment at EA was a very manual process arranged via email with participants – there was no standardized global approach.
- The solution: Standardized and centralized solution, prepare participants before hand leading to more successful candidates, ability to notify and push updates to a participant in real time eg if running late.
- Their role: UX, UI, art direction.
- User flows: mapping at a system level. They now use FigJam (learn how to use).
- Prototyping and wireframing: low fidelity and then move to high fidelity – they use Invision for prototyping.
- Post support: ongoing support during and after development and user acceptance testing.
Other projects
- They work primarily with product design.
- heavy data and information based jobs – eg ORCA (Aimed at people in mid 50’s).
- Current project – Bludot.
- Kairos.
- EA FIFA – give users ability to see connectivity problems. QR code that can scan within game that can take you to this data site they created.
- Answers.ie.com they created the badges for the EA support parts – they build a visual identity.
New project just launched:
- The EA creator platform.
- New initiative to reach out to content creators that focus on gaming with a certain number of follower base to receive perks. Pushing it past only Youtubers.
How did they manage to work with one of the largest gaming companies? It all started with a book of a cat.
- They got a local illustrator to illustrate the children’s book – They invested so much that they did not take any salary for many months. The stories were written by Tims dad – name of the book (Chalky and the new sports car)
They met with Dan Womsley after a conference – they had earlier on demond at a makers fair and it grabbed Dans (Worked at NESTLEY then moved to EA) attention – he remembered them from that conference and suggested they get hired. NETWORKING works.
They still work with kids content – especially kids educational content.
FOOTI
- Website that caters to football fans needs.
- They created it during lockdown when clients pulled works and they were left with no work to be done for like 3 months.
- The most environmentally conscious football website in the world.
- They REALLY care about the environment – eg hosting companies: and the energy cost related to them so CDN’s – Server-less technology however makes it hard to get things in real life – eg live stats.
- They have also looked at how they can use AI to simplify customer support – worked on this for 9 months. Intercom beat them to it though. Little Thunders program never got off the ground.
Previous intern – Andy
- He was interested in Illustration and design and then learned how to animate with them
Things they like us to know
- Figma
- FigJam
- Invision
- Animations to inform project walkthroughs.
- They are very environmentally conscious (Be aware of the real time carbon cost of your designs).
- Challenge yourself, do something that makes you happy.
- Be passionate about your work.
- Being able to make friends and start from scratch with many people – relationships first and foremost.
Work with them in 2022
- Paid placement.
- They don’t have a job description.
- Their needs: design front end, social media understanding, content writer, researcher, illustration, animation.
- Anything that you think is interesting as a side project bring it in – do something that excites you and interest you.
- If anyone is interested send you online portfolio (No CVs please) showcasing your work to info@littlethunder.co.
- Studio in Riverhouse moved in 2019 – they use slack for communicating, Figma for designing and zoom for conferences. They have given up their offices and are now 100% from home.
- Hi Tim for the email – he will read it.