David Lai: Say Hello to Design

David Lai is the award winning CEO and Creative Director of Hello Design, a creative design agency that specializes in strategic consulting and implementation practices for their clients. By successfully bringing focus to the problems a business may face, Hello Design has worked with a wide range of clients including Sony, Callaway Golf, and Toyota. With a truly global reach, Hello Design has been able to build its business and attract huge customers with its singular mantra that "when design is done well, it has the capacity to break through the clutter."

Apple has pioneered this notion for the past decade, with innovative design working harmoniously with technology to deliver transcendent products like the iPod and the iPhone that have spawned into their own product category. (Read about "Apple's Design Process" in Business Week)

Hello Design Awards Hello Design's website purports that, "Our clients believe in the power of a great idea. They are brave and believe in revolutionary change. They strive to be the best, where good enough is never enough." And from the looks of their growing client list, their claims appear to be true. Want to contest them? Well good luck! Over the past decade, Hello Design has been awarded Cannes Lion, the Webby Awards, One Show Pencil, BDA Isis, ADDY Awards, and a couple of Flash Film Festival Arrows. Hello has also won awards and recognition from these publications and organizations: Communication Arts, I.D., HOW, Print, STEP, WebAward, SXSW, D&AD, The Art Director's Club, FITC, Graphis, Taschen, and the AIGA.

Nine Goals Hello Design's culture is built around their passion for their craft. Their meticulous process is "a blend of common sense and hard work." They are driven by 9 goals: Be Good (Have good design), Listen, Don't Grow Up! (Ask questions, be curious), Content is the Soul (find your voice), Invent Door Knobs (solutions should be easy to understand), Exceed Expectations, Crave Beauty, Create Delight, and Think What It?

Competing Against Itself James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, award winning authors of "Built To Last, Successful Habits of Visionary Companies", write that "The crucial variable is not the content of a company's ideology, but how deeply it believes its ideology, and how consistently it lives, breaths, and expresses it in all that it does." David Lai and his team of designers live by their passion and have produced a company that is primarily interested in beating itself. Success and beating competitors comes to the visionary companies not so much as the end goal, but as a residual result of relentlessly improving what was done before.

Hello Design's services extend beyond mere creative branding and marketing campaigns. They offer strategic solutions covering concept development, brand strategy, marketing and user research that marries technological expertise with great design.

Related News:
• David Lai discusses "putting yourself out there" in Behance Magazine "Leadership In Design" • "Success Secrets" interview with David Lai