Meet the team: Jess

From the very beginnings of Zetteler, we’ve prided ourselves on being a hotbed of ideas. We worked our socks off making them happen, but we were a small team in those days and for every 10 amazing things we made happen, there were always one or two that we had to leave at the wayside. We weren’t happy with that, naturally, so we put aside some cash and brought in a freelancer to open the bonnet, take a look at our internal systems, and help us make sure all those ideas we had made it to reality.

The day Jess stepped into Zetteler a couple of summers back things changed enormously. We’d always had a rocket up our collective arse, but Jess turned up with a star chart and a million gallons of extra fuel.

The team started getting reviews and regular feedback. Our web presence went from a page to a site. We opened a shop. We always had pens. There was tea in the kitchen and a plan for what we’d be doing next year. She was only with us for a couple of days a week, but suddenly we found that not only did stuff happen, it happened faster, better, and with really impressive spreadsheets attached.

Not many businesses the size we were would bother with investing in their operations, but  Jess made such an impact, we started recommending her to anyone and everyone who needed their systems sorting. Then we realised we didn’t want to share. We asked Jess to join us full-time as Zetteler co-director.

All of us – and our clients – are extremely grateful she said yes.

Hello Jess, what do you do at Zetteler?

Mostly, I organise things. I’m the operational arm that helps facilitate the Zetteler vision. We all have lots of ideas about how we might make things better, but there are nuts and bolts that need to be managed and that’s where I’m useful. Contracts, invoices, films, stationery, our team structure… anything that needs some kind of plan or deadline.

I like to find order and some form of emotive/intuitive logic in things – I seem to have a bit of a systems brain. It helps me to make sense of situations but also helps us map out what needs to be done as a team. Zetteler’s projects are always highly collaborative, but I’ll often be the checklist that pulls the various tasks together.

I’ve implemented some of our core business processes – from finance software to team meetings. I sent our first MailChimp, got our website up and running, launched The Z List, managed our LDF collaboration with Restoration Station x Yinka Ilori – those kinds of things! I still manage a lot of our internal projects but recently I’ve been working closely with Andy, our creative film director, and Sabine to develop Zetteler Films – our production arm that Sab and Andy started five years ago (formerly known as Zetteler & Dunn). We worked on some wicked projects in the second half of last year – some we can’t talk about (always fun) and others for dream humans including the teams at Form Us With Love, Flynn Talbot, Southern Swedish Creatives, Riposte and Studio Ore.

What made you choose to make a career in the design industry?

I obsessed over my Blueprint and ICON subscriptions and actively avoided the art department while I was doing my A-Levels. I planned to study product design at the Design Academy Eindhoven but through life’s twists and turns (and a foundation in Brighton) I ended up studying Fine Art at Falmouth.

Brilliant tutors (big up Pete Webster) challenged me to own my curiosity and find confidence in questions. This kind of thinking, combined with my habitual process of planning and focusing on apparently useless details, seems to suit the design industry.

I care about people and concepts. Design can mean as much or as little as developing a system or a process. I feel at home within this framework because it has the potential to mean anything.

Your academic background is in Fine Art and your professional background has spanned art, design, tech, stationery and events – that’s an unusual mix. Where do you think this combination of creativity and practicality comes from?

Ah yes… Probably my parents. My mum is a trauma-focused therapist (or a horse whisperer, depending on how you want to look at it) with an entrepreneurial, creative background. My dad left a career in the Royal Signals to become COO at the Foreign Office (ie an IT geek). He’s now a casual freelancer, most recently working with Crossrail, TFL and lots of the mobile operators.

My first stepdad, Ricky, ran a restaurant so I grew up watching him managing a team of 50+ and all the loose wires that come with running your own business. My second stepdad, Robin, works in the strange new heart of finance. His team are responsible for developing and implementing best-practice regulations at UBS. He took a sabbatical from the city to spend two years studying biodynamic farming a while back, and is on the board for a wind farm in Wales.

They’re an eclectic bunch and my marriage of creative thinking and project management is in part due to their distinct personalities. I reckon that some of my agility/confidence in dealing with change is a credit to their influences.

What do you think differentiates Zetteler from the ever-growing number of PR agencies popping up out there?

The sentiments that have always driven my motivation at Zetteler are ‘Is it useful?’ ‘Is it kind? and ‘How can we make it better?’ We really care about the people that we work with and that makes it very easy to work hard for them. If we can help someone, then we will, and if we can help, then why not go the extra mile to make sure what we do has extra value?

We all work hard. We all want to do good. I get to be the best of myself at work and, without sounding like a total dick, that’s pretty nice.

What’s the best bit of your day?

I’ve yet to experience a quiet time at Zetteler; there’s always something going on, and plenty to do. A long list makes me move fast but my favourite moments are when I think we’re at capacity and then an unexpected, ridiculous and exciting email comes in about a new project and everything changes in an instant as we try figure out how we can do it. Those are always really dynamic, focused moments where any number of brains on the team might be pulled in to make a plan. I like making plans – especially for something that I don’t know how to do.

I also can’t help but smile when old friends pop up in work moments – that’s an extra highlight that happens a lot – or when I get to work on something with paper. Paper projects = magic moments.

What excites you about the design scene today?

I’ve always understood design to mean space and objects, but now I think it means ideas and actions. Concepts like Social Label, Taktal, Urban Good, Aerende and Ma-tt-er are reshaping the idea of design into a potential to create change and I find that really exciting.

It feels as though there’s a transition occurring where collaborative work across industries is being normalised and a stronger emphasis is being placed on the social and global value of ‘work’. These platforms (and the organisations above) have all kept me up late at night in the last year: Test Unit, In Formation, Open School Matera, Parallel Practices and the Disruptive Innovation Festival. I’m wholeheartedly in support of different industries working together – we need to do it more. I often get lost in my to-do list and forget to look up and ask questions to the people around me but the more we can do it the better it will be for our society.

Do you have a favourite designer/studio/brand? 

Droog – forever and always, a silly love affair that started at school and still quietly keeps me high fiving. I watched Bethany Williams do a talk at the British Council’s annual Design Connections 10x10 event this year and her detailed (as in really, really detailed) systems thinking caught my heart. She’s doing brilliant work around social and environmental issues in the fashion industry.

Most inspiring things you’ve ever seen?

The clouds and the waves and the coast while swimming in a storm in the sea.

Culturally, it’s 20:50 by Richard Wilson's at County Hall; Junya Ishigami’s Architecture as Air installation at the Barbican; and Paolo Antonelli speaking at a Riposte event last year. She’s a hero.

Favourite place to go in London?

Hampstead Ponds on a quiet day. Give me green space and cold water and I’m happy. Or put me near some friends and a Guinness and I’ll usually smile – the Auld Shillelagh in Stoke Newington is a special spot. 

First thing you do in the morning?

Squint at the trees outside my window and try to make sense of the words on Radio 4.

If you could only use one app/software item/tool for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Google sheets and a label maker. I know that’s two…