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.

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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.

1. user research.
2. prototyping.
3. user experience.
4. 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.