Ten Questions with Visual Designer Cat Maciver-Whyte

Maybe you haven't heard: Do Tank is not your average consultancy. We DO more for our clients than most of our competitors.

Stunningly-animated pitch decks, studio-quality training videos, and human-centered workshops built to tackle your unique problems—we DO it all, not just for US-based clients but clients all over the world.

How is it possible? Simple, we hire amazing people. Because if you're going to market yourself as a one-stop consultancy, you need visual, digital, and business designers who can execute with exceptional speed and attention to detail.

Designers like Cat Maciver-Whyte .

Since January 2022, Cat's helped businesses inspire, engage, and educate their workforces with custom visual designs. She puts big ideas into motion.

In this article, we ask Cat Maciver-Whyte about life as a visual designer and how compelling visuals can help us to think differently and be bold.

Describe your role in two words.

Creative solutions.?

What is motion design? How does it affect business design?

Motion design is the best way to tell engaging stories—whether it’s an event, playbook, or pitch. Most people think visually. So it makes sense that business designers use visual design to convey ideas.

We spend a lot of time listening to our clients. How can we best convey this concept? How can we best convey this story? The answer is usually motion. However, it’s not always the most appropriate.

Motion is, well, always on the move. The tricks motion designers use now are fairly new, but the entire space is on the brink of something weird.

As technology advances, virtual spaces grow, and metaverse tools become more available, motion design will change how we experience life—not just business. In short, if you want to capture someone's attention, make something that moves.

Are motion graphics more engaging than static visuals??

Always. The majority of people learn best using verbal cues with visual support. Road Signs are a really good example. When you enter a village or town in the UK, you’re greeted with a million different visuals asking you to slow down.

The most effective sign is beautifully simple. Going too fast? The sign blinks red. Going at the correct speed? The sign displays a happy green. This is a classic example of using “good” and “bad” colors to create accountability.

We give business similarly simple visual tools to make more efficient systems.

Visual design has no borders. Do you approach an international challenge differently?

For the most part: NO. As much as art has no borders, everything we create is human to human. Diversity in design is important, but diversity doesn't know borders either. As long as we’re inclusive to how different people think and interact, we’re in the right place.

Take, for example, reading. Whether it’s right to left, up to down, or purely symbolic, the world reads differently. Icons mean different things in different cultures. I find it quite easy to put my myself in other people’s shoes.?

You have dyslexia. How does neurodiversity effect your work and contribute to your “perspective hopping” ability?

It’s all about context. In personal life, I see people arguing over misspellings all the time, and i’m like “Dude, it's a tweet! If you understood what they meant, leave it alone.” I get it in the professional sense. You send a poorly written email or cover letter that looks rushed, that could be an indicator of how you work.

Don't assume that people work (or think) in the same way that you do, because everyone’s is different. Very few people sit in the exact same lane on every issue.

That doesn't mean we see everything so differently. At Do Tank, we approach every single design and solution with this knowledge. Humans have this massive amount of variety, that's what makes so unique and individual… and what allows for the visual tricks that work on most of us.

In your mind, where do software and art meet?

First of all, there is a huge distinction between design and art. Design means solving a problem. You’re looking at a diagram like a thought-provoking automobile, and tinkering with the engine. Usually the problem is creating a design to evoke a particular emotion.

We’re a long ways away from software that solves that problem. However, people are using software to make beautiful pictures out of spreadsheets, creating stunning animates out of geometric shapes and code. There are no limitations.

When software enters creative spaces it blurs the lines of what's possible—and it's not stopping anytime soon. That line is just getting blurrier and blurrier. I think it’s great!

How important is planning/storyboarding when starting a new project? What does your process look like?

I take the time to set up and become an expert—which involves lot’s of note taking, folder organizing, and critical thinking.

It's important to use the pen as well. I think there’s something science to it—you learn better by writing than typing—but, yeah, I start any project with an excess of pre-planning.?

Everyone works their own way, but for me structure is extremely important. If you skip steps and don't don't organize your workspace before you start, you’ll waste so much time searching for assets later on.

Storyboarding doesn’t happen until I sketch my ideas. Sketches are like a failsafe. You do a quick sketch to see if something’s going to work, then start planning a build in illustrator.?

Can you explore UX?

User experience is a unique challenge that creates a lot of overlap between the visual and digital teams. The visual team asks “do the visuals sell each of the UX functions?” and the digital team asks “does our tech support the visual design?” That’s why it’s important to keep those communications channel open.

The difference between UI and UX is that UI is what you see. We work extremely closely with digital designers to peek into the structure of digital tools; making sure the end-product looks like the original, user-oriented design. A lot of critical thinking goes into adjusting visual designs for a digital space.

You’re not static. In fact, you’ve probably taken more post-degree courses than anyone on the team. How important is “staying in the design mindset” to visual design?

Staying in practice is incredibly important. I pay attention to the visual world. The only social platform I like is Instagram. I scroll through my feed, clipping images, keeping up with current styles, and checking in on friends.

I’m a really strong proponent of not doing the trendy stuff just because its trending. That’s the whole design process: You ask yourself “am I doing it to be esthetically pleasing or if it’s actually solving the problem?”

Do your job right the first time. And the second time. And the third time. That’s how you build trust and make clients want more. I spend time expanding my skills, so I can continue to create motion that heightens the user experience.

There’s a fine line between it engaging and distracting—and that line moves with every project. You have to “stay in the design mindset” to succeed in new ways.

It's time to put your next project in motion. Learn how we can help at Dotankdo.com.