Little Miss Chou Chou

Talking branding and design with rising creative director, Annie Chou.

Courtesy of Annie Chou

When it comes to branding and design, head over to Chou Chou Designs where you’ll meet petite sweetheart and creative director, Annie Chou. Together, you’ll discover a world where craft meets post-modern design – where graphics are only the first steps when developing a successful brand. Sitting with Annie at Urban Herbivore, we discussed how she’s changed since roaming the halls of O.C.A.D., where she gets her inspiration, and most importantly: how she goes about branding a company.

Pony: You’re known for combining craft with digital media. Why do you use both?

Annie: Nowadays everything is so modern and clean, and that can start to look boring after a while. There’s not enough personality to the brand. I wanted to do something different; a little post-modern to break up the trend a bit but not so far that it’s simply something decorative and pretty to look at. My work serves a purpose to the brand first and foremost. It’s all about balancing what you want and what the client wants.

Pony: What do you do if the client has really bad taste?

Annie: If they’re stubborn, I’ll do what they want me to do. But I’ll ask them to talk to a few more people and get more opinions before I go ahead with it. But hey, sometimes I’m wrong! You need to understand a logo the minute you look at it and sometimes I’ll look at something differently to how my client sees it because I’m in a different target market.

Pony: If the client has no idea what they want, what sort of aspects do you consider when re-branding a company?

Courtesy of Annie Chou

Annie: I always start by asking the client what sort of vision they have. A doodle, a colour, anything that helps me understand where they’re coming from. I’ve got to keep them thinking outside the box and introduce them to new concepts they may haven’t considered yet.

Pony: What have you learned since O.C.A.D. that you feel is important in the design world?

Annie: So much! The design industry is a little old school – interns don’t get paid and have to do whatever they’re told. With my company, I’ve tried to change that and let my interns know exactly what it’s going to be like and keep them in a “free-speech” zone to help excel their creativity. It’s great because that way I teach them and they teach me, our ideas come together and we end up with better results. When I was a junior, I wanted to learn so much but nobody would teach me. Even O.C.A.D. was all about forcing you to teach yourself a lot of stuff – packaging, printing, etc. I had to learn from reading books. On the brighter side, it did teach me to really think outside the box on a more conceptual level.

Courtesy of Annie Chou

Pony: Do you have any freelance clients that only care about the design and not-so-much the business aspect?

Annie: Ya, I had one client who was a little boutique clothing shop and I got to really experiment with the design. But with other clients (such as hospitals) you need to be really careful and stick to only one image. You can’t exactly go grungy and artsy with a hospital because people rely on them for medical care and don’t want to feel they can’t trust them. It’s rare that I get to create whatever I want with a client – in the end it’s about generating profit for them by using an image that works for the company.

Pony: In terms of inspiration, do you go to a lot of art shows or galleries?

Annie: I check out a lot of blogs. Fashion blogs, NY Times, etc. But I have no intention of getting inspired by them – it has to come from you. If I’m just walking down the street and see a crack in the sidewalk, I might think “oh that could make a cool pattern”, you just need to be constantly looking at everything. I’m attracted to style in general, the mixing of textures in fashion, everything.

Pony: At the end of the day would you recommend O.C.A.D.? I know we’ve said both good and bad things at this point.

Annie: I would. It came easier for me because I always knew I wanted to be a designer. You need a clear path in order to succeed at O.C.A.D. because otherwise you just get lost in the crowd. They don’t tell you who to be, but they introduce you to the world of design in general. It demands a certain type of person to be there.

Courtesy of Annie Chou

For more information or to check out Annie’s work, check out her website here.

– Emma Farquharson