Design Nation 2021: Navigating the Pandemic, Consumer Behavior, and Sustainability in the Design Industry with Clark Goolsby, Chief Creative Officer at Chase Design Group

Over the last twenty years, Clark Goolsby has worked with a wide range of brands – from startups to large global corporations. In 2010, Clark launched Chase Design Group’s New York office. It has thrived under his leadership, quickly growing into a successful team working with a variety of national and international clients.

Not only has the work done by Clark and his team resonated with consumers, it has also been widely recognized by the design community including: Communication Arts, Print Magazine, GDUSA, The Pentawards, The Telly Awards, The Addy Awards, and many others.

Outside of Chase Design Group, Clark has enjoyed a successful career in fine arts. His paintings and sculptures have been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. In 2016, his work was short-listed for a permanent installation in New York City.

Current and previous clients include: Anheuser-Busch, Animal Planet, CVS Pharmacy, The CW Network, Califia Farms, Cranium, Discovery Channel, Disney, Kind, MTV, Mattel, Mr. Clean, Nestlé, Nickelodeon, Pfizer, P&G, Sam Adams, Solid Gold Pet Foods, Stila Cosmetics, SuperShuttle, Target, and X2 Energy.

Shirley Ren (BT): First of all, I was wondering if there are things that really excite you about working in the design industry in your current role. As a creative, what are some aspects of this work that really make it more like a lifestyle than a job?

Clark Goolsby (CG): One of the things that I love about working at Chase is that our culture is very polymathic — we wear a lot of hats — and our hierarchy is quite flat. I'm the Chief Creative Officer, but I'm still doing design work. Sometimes, I'll be supporting our junior members with more menial design tasks to help them get things finished. I really like that part of my job. I love being able to design and illustrate, and I feel lucky because at many other companies, the more senior you get, the less design you get to do.

BT: For sure, company culture definitely is really important. What do you think were the most memorable projects that you've worked on, either for a client or for personal passion?

CG: One project that comes to mind is from when I first started my job at Chase. I was working on a brand called Cranium, which is a board game. At the time, they had grown the brand pretty significantly and had almost fifty different games and toys in the market. I began working on this project as a freelancer and had done many designs for the first presentation. Ultimately, my design ended up getting selected! So, Chase kept me on as a freelancer to continue to work on the project. Then, within a few months, they offered me a job. I think that project always sticks in my mind, because it was my first project at Chase, and now I've been at Chase for fourteen years. It was also my introduction to Margo Chase [founder of Chase Design Group], who was a huge influence in my life and career. I had many freelance jobs in the area, but Chase Design Group was my first full-time job with a design firm in Los Angeles. I felt like I finally had a real job and was having success with that job. So, Cranium has always been a project that has stood out for me.

BT: That’s definitely a milestone. I wanted to move on to another milestone in your career, which is starting the New York office for Chase Design Group. I was wondering if you could speak about some of the challenges and surprises that came out of that experience and how it shaped your personal and career journey?

CG: It’s an interesting story. As you know, I've also always kept a fine art practice. When I was in LA, I was actually really involved with being a fine artist. I had a studio and was showing in galleries. After five years in LA, my wife got a really amazing job opportunity in New York, and we had always wanted to live there. My assumption was that I would quit Chase Design Group and move to New York, because at that time, they only had the LA studio. I had planned to go back to school and get my MFA. I was at a turning point where I thought, maybe I will focus on fine art, and not do design anymore. 

Several months before leaving LA, I went to tell Margo, and she said something along the lines of, “Well, that's not good.” Very shortly thereafter, she said, “What do you think about opening a New York office for us?” I had not even considered it, so it took me off guard a little bit. However, I quickly realized that this was a really exciting opportunity for me to be able to open a studio and have a job built into moving to New York. 

Margo really had tremendous faith in me. She was obviously much more experienced than I was, but she always really treated me as an equal. We had a really great working relationship and we were able to critique each other's work in a really positive way. When we started the New York studio, she really let me run with it. 

BT: Wow, that definitely is a really interesting story. I think it again goes to show the work culture at Chase Design Group. One of the principles of Chase is to create this emotional connection that transcends language and culture. Having employees now at three offices across the globe, as well as this principle as a guideline, I was wondering how you incorporate these different diverse perspectives into your work as a creative and for the company?

“The hardest thing that I think designers have to deal with is the role that emotions play in our work. Emotions are not quantifiable.”

CG: The hardest thing that I think designers have to deal with is the role that emotions play in our work. Emotions are not quantifiable. It's been proven that people have emotional responses to design. Emotions will drive people to buy things or do things that they might not normally. The challenge is that emotions are very hard to quantify for businesses. It's hard for large organizations to make design decisions without data behind them. We work on some billion-dollar brands, and those brands move very carefully. They rarely make purely emotional decisions. They want to make sure the decisions they make are going to be positive for the brand and return a profit. One of the real challenges we have is figuring out how to create that emotional connection that makes things desirable, but also in a way that businesses can understand and think is a good investment. Design sits between business and art, and that is an area that can be tricky to navigate.

BT: That definitely is a challenge for the industry, but that also is what makes it really interesting and exciting to work in. Going off of that, how do you think the pandemic has shifted how you strategize and execute design for clients?

CG: The pandemic has certainly had huge shifts in what we do at Chase, but also on brands that we work on. There were two big issues in consumers’ minds prior to the pandemic. The first one was sustainability, and the other one was safety (more natural products with fewer chemicals). We work on a lot of cleaning products, and those two issues were always top of mind. Then, COVID-19 hit, and we saw a huge shift in consumer behavior. Consumers became less focused on those two issues, and much more focused on killing germs. Everybody is really worried, and they want to protect their family. They were not going to take a chance on something “natural,” instead, they wanted something they knew would work. 

That's been really interesting for us to navigate, because we were going down a path of sustainability and natural ingredients. Then, all of a sudden, things really started to sweep back. Now, we're trying to figure out where the common ground is — are people starting to shift back to those two key issues, now that COVID-19 is lessening a bit?  It has definitely kept us on our toes over the last year.

BT: I wanted to close with just one last question. For aspiring young designers, what existing challenges in the design world do you hope they will tackle in the future, and why?

CG: I think the biggest challenge facing us is sustainability, not just in the packaging industry, but in all industries. How do we fix this problem? I vacillate between being a pessimist and an optimist, but I like to think of myself as an optimist at heart. I really do think that millennials and Gen Z are going to be the generations that really start to make a difference. The government, corporations, retailers and consumers will all play a role. One thing that's really inspiring about millennials and Gen Z is that they're going to add pressure to businesses for them to make things different. Previous generations seem to be less motivated by the sustainability of a product. Typically, sustainable products are more expensive, and when we tested them with consumers, they invariably didn't want to pay more for them. But, I think the younger generations are very serious about sustainability and realize that it's worth the investment on their end. The onus isn’t all on consumers. Corporations, governments, and retailers have the responsibility to be more sustainable and environmentally focused as well. I think that when all four groups come together, we can make a big change.

BT: For sure, I definitely agree, and hopefully these conversations that we are having will turn the tide towards powerful action in the near future. Thank you so much for the interview.