Troika Design Group

Although Troika’s clients are huge, their design team is small. With only about 25 employees, they tend to focus on teams and designing specifically for television. They’re also not afraid of outsourcing projects to freelancers which I think is very valuable in creative firms, keeping things fresh and innovative. I think working for a company like Troika would be really cool because they put a lot of emphasis on the design process. They talk about the most important thing about working with a client is the process and I find that to be true.

I think one of the biggest things that creative agencies have over typical, old fashioned companies is their creative culture. Nascar’s design floor having mopeds to ride to neighboring offices, Google having Nerf guns to keep people alert, are examples of keeping an innovative creative culture in a place where the employees spend most of their time in front of computers. I think when working with major clients like Troika does, it’s important to be able to stay professional but a fun culture in the office seems to help this.

It seems Troika has done some major rebranding for larger TV companies and their process, once again, always is the main focus. I think when working with well known companies, that already have an established brand, it makes it harder to redesign graphics because it is such a well known visual aspect.

When it comes to the balance of technology and design Troika speaks about being a little behind the curve to make sure that their systems operate properly. Technology has become very much your paint brush and your pencil, and Troika uses the technology as the tools and the design as the solution and process. You either become a designer or an animator, animators become masters of their tools and designers become problem solvers and are a littler removed from the technology.

I think this is a really innovative way to come up with design solutions because technology has taken over designing anything. There is also something to say about taking found objects, scanning them in, and making a hand felt graphic through actual objects found around an office or home.

I think Troika does a good job of creating graphics that are more modern by rebranding well known brands, which is always a trying task.