Category: The Team

Meet the team: Clément Faydi

Who are you and what do you do at Behance?
Bonjour! I’m Clément, one of the three Lead Designers at Behance. As part of the “Product Team,” I’m involved in concepting new ideas and turning them into features and products. I am currently mostly focused on helping creatives discover more work and getting inspired. Things I do every day: discuss how to improve products, sketch wireframes, make them real in Photoshop, support our developers as they make their magic happen, and of course, what I’m most passionate about: moving things by one pixel.

What are three desktop tools you can’t live without?
1. Photoshop – I know it’s obvious for a designer, but it’s definitely the software I use the most and certainly couldn’t live without.
2. Rdio – The best way to listen to music on the internet! Beyond providing me with more music than I could ever hope for, they are at the forefront of UI design, and always take minimalism to a new level. I love what they do.
3. Alfred- Because it allows me to open Twitter in 1/4 seconds.

What have you worked on recently that you’re extra proud of?
I am super excited about the new Behance iPhone app that will launch very soon. We have incorporated some key features that will help creatives discover more work and showcase what they are working on to the world, from their phone. I’m also currently redesigning the way users find great projects on Behance and will hopefully be able to share a preview soon. Very exciting!

 What do you listen to while working?
Mostly jazz. I started playing piano when I was 8 years old and now find myself discovering a lot of subtleties I couldn’t hear before. I guess that designing makes me unconsciously listen to music in a very different way. Also, I really can’t focus on my work when hearing songs with lyrics!

What are some startups that you’re a fan of?
There are a lot of startups I follow, but I’ve lately been very impressed with what the guys at FiftyThree are doing. They always solve problems in a surprising, yet simple way, and that’s a very difficult thing to do. They recently launched a new tool called the “Mixer” for their app Paper and revealed their process and some of their secrets here. Quite magical, I love how obsessed they are.

Check out Clément’s ProSite, Behance portfolio, or follow him on Twitter.

Behance Hackathon Recap

Last week Behance held an in-house Halloween Hackathon (one month later due to Hurricane Sandy). This day was filled with some amazing ideas, collaboration and participation from both the Behance team and some special guests.

Here is a list of some great ideas that came to life:

  • BeSpoke: A gallery of work tailored to your taste 
  • Comments Analysis: Analyzing how positive or negative your comments are on Behance 
  • Advice by Behance: A mentor finder- connecting established and emerging creatives, to share knowledge & collect feedback
  • Bēgin: A simple way to use Behance for a daily dose of inspiration
  • Inspiration Pill: What you take is what you make
  • Behanceroids: Asteroids Game
  • Roundtable: An easy uploader for students to post work in progress, evaluate & critique 

Meet the team: William Allen

Who are you and what do you do at Behance?
Hi! I’m William Allen – I run Strategy & Operations here at Behance. I watch all the money coming in and out of the business, study our user analytics, push forward our marketing and advertising initiatives, and read through boring contracts. But mostly I get to learn from an amazing team.

What are three desktop tools you can’t live without?
1) Evernote for organizing my thoughts
2) Sequel Pro for database analytics work
3) Excel – still the world’s best program for anyone who works with finance and data.

What have you worked on recently that you’re extra proud of?
We hold weekly analytics meetings with our design/product teams – and every week we learn something new. Proud to be able to put our amazing growth into charts!

What do you listen to while working? 
My colleagues talking – I never wear headphones. It’s remarkable what you can learn through ambient noise.

Can you name a few favorite blogs and sites?
Fred Wilson’s blog AVC, Felix Salmon, James Altucher, and on the political side, Andrew Sullivan.

Name something you’ve learned since joining the Behance team that you weren’t expecting:
That there are more variations to my name (like Bottom Line Billy, for example) than you could ever imagine.

Keep up with Will on Twitter at @WilliamAllen. 

Workspace Wednesday: Halloween Hurricane edition

The Behance team was very fortunate to make it through Hurricane Sandy safe and sound last week. However, power outages and floods kept us from commuting to our beloved Soho office, leaving us to work from wherever wifi could be had, mostly our couches and coworkers’ homes.

For this special Workspace Wednesday, we’ve got a roundup of our team’s workspaces from last Wednesday, which also happened to be Halloween!

 

Behance Team Holding Strong Amidst Hurricane Sandy

A quick note from Scott Belsky, Behance’s Co-Founder, on Behance’s status this week.

It has been a wild week for all of us, but everyone on the Behance team is safe and sound. At this point, our thoughts are with those people and families that have lost lives, their homes or were otherwise impacted by the storm.

All of Soho lost power – and many of our homes are still without electricity or internet, but the team stayed coordinated to take care of each other, keep Behance up and running, and continue to serve our members.

As I look back over the years we have worked together as a team, it’s clear that adversity always makes us stronger. Server mishaps, broken elevators, missed planes, minor earthquakes, and yes – even hurricanes – bring us together. We become better communicators, more tolerant, and we learn how to prepare for next time. It’s easy when it’s all smooth sailing. But when something goes wrong, the greatest teams rise to the occasion…and really stand out.

I want to express gratitude to team Behance for their patience and commitment this week. Makes me especially proud to be on this journey with all of you.

Behance members: Our community management team is accessible and doing their best to respond to your questions. If you are having trouble getting ahold of us, please email energy -at- behance -dot- com.

Thanks and be well!
scott

Meet the team: Sean Blanda

Who are you and what do you do at Behance?
 I’m Sean, the Associate Editor and Producer of 99U.Basically: I handle all the day-to-day work of running a blog with an audience of a million creatives. Stuff like finding guest writers, editing posts, writing posts, determining article topics/themes and brainstorming long-term growth strategy with EIC Jocelyn Glei. We hope to provide our readers with all of the stuff they need to execute on ideas. I’m constantly testing and tweaking to discover what resonates with our readership. Additionally, I play a role in helping to organize the 99U conference and a few other super-secret events we have up our sleeve.

What are three desktop tools you can’t live without?

1) Evernote – I’m a new convert to the church of Evernote but I use it, without exaggeration, every 10 minutes. For someone like me with a terrible memory, it’s a life saver.
2) Spotify – If it weren’t for Spotify I’d be listening to the same four Black Keys albums. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
3) Twitter - It’s how I reach out to writers, promote our work, get exposed to new ideas, and complain about the Philadelphia Eagles.

What have you worked on recently that you’re extra proud of?
I’m only 6 weeks on the job, but I’m proud that we’ve had the highest trafficked day in 2012 this month. I’m also proud to see the comments and tweets from readers who use the content to make their lives better. The best is yet to come.

What are some startups that you’re a fan of?
In a past life, I covered startups and venture capital so I’m a big fan of ambitious businesses that affect the general population and not just other tech-savvy startup people. My favorite of the moment are Uber (car service), Frank and Oak (men’s clothes), Lore (education), Circa (journalism), and Duck Duck Go (search). Also: anything Elon Muskis involved with. America needs more ambitious startups.

Name something you’ve learned since joining the Behance team that you weren’t expecting:
“Attention to detail” is usually some throwaway phrase on job descriptions. But here, I’m learning from the care that everyone takes in their day-to-day. I’ve seen (and taken part in) discussions about tiny details like the kerning on a site’s footer or the perfect copy to use in an article teaser. Whether it’s the new project editor on Behance, a partnership with a sponsor, an article on 99U, or some print collateral – everything is well considered, well designed and well executed. And that’s just been in the six weeks since I’ve started. I’m excited to see what happens next.

You can find Sean on twitter: @SeanBlanda. 

Meet the team: Sarah Rapp

Who are you and what do you do at Behance?
Hello! I’m Sarah Rapp – sometimes referred to as “Social Sarah” here at Behance (why yes, I do handle social Media here). As the Director of Community & Engagement, I (along with our 2 other Community Managers) think of myself as “the eyes and ears of Behance,” so everything I do relates to making sure our members are happy, and that we’re offering up the best, most engaging experience to them we possibly can.

Most days, this involves a lot of listening (through social channels, emailing with members, and analyzing behavior on our site) and making improvements based on what I hear. The other half is talking back to our community, in ways like: maintaining our social accounts (especially the mega-account @Behance), planning offline events and programs for them, blogging at the Team Blog, Newsletters, and much more!

I also squeeze in things like test-driving the latest social platforms and technologies & keeping tabs on our metrics. And always, collecting stories and anecdotes from our members to share with the world!

What are three desktop tools you can’t live without?
1) Sprout Social – this is what we use to Tweet from @Behance and the 6 or 7 other Twitter accounts we maintain. A few months back we did a big audit of all the best social media management tools out there, and Sprout is our pick – well-designed, with lots of visualized data about your fan base at your fingertips.

2) Mac’s “Hot Corners” tool – Not exactly an app, but this is my favorite Mac feature. I often have about
10 programs open at once, so each of my corners is programmed to do something different to help me
stay organized. With one move of the mouse, I can clear away all the open programs to find something
on my desktop, or go to another corner to get the birds-eye view of everything I have open. It annoys
the hell out of anyone who tries to use my computer, but it’s worth it!

3) Gmail Multiple Inboxes – I swear by this Google Labs tool that lets you reorganize your inbox to
create several inboxes on one screen. My top inbox is for new/”to deal with” emails, the one below that
is starred emails that need more attention, and below that I have emails all related to one project. It’s a
lifesaver.

Read more →

An interview with Behance’s Head of Strategy, William Allen

Our Head of Strategy, William Allen, was recently interviewed on Social Media Week about his role at Behance, strategy for building community and the importance of company culture.

You’ve been at Behance for over a year now. What’s been your biggest challenge leading strategy at Behance?
WA: The biggest challenge is what to focus on. If you’re ambitious, your attention can be pulled in thousands of directions; the challenge is to figure out what are the most important things you can accomplish and include them in your strategy. Choosing the right thing is hard. We focus on our mission which is to empower the creative world. At Behance, we want to be the “wind at their backs,” which means giving them anything they need to be successful and also means matching the talent with opportunity. The reason why Behance gets 70M pageviews a month is because of these creatives–we step back and showcase their work, allowing them to be their own best representatives. We give them the tools.

What’s been your strategy in building the community? How do you know what to include and what to leave out?
WA: You have to have a world view and you have to have a compass of where you want to go. That mission shapes every action that you take: for us it means building deliberately and intelligently. We’ve been concerned about building the right kind of community, the right people for the right platform. It’s important that we fulfill the mission which is giving our user the resources they need to be successful at their careers versus growing quickly. And that takes time. The human quality of curation has been an important part of our strategy, where the good quality work really bubbles up, and it make the site aspirational.

Keep reading here. 

Don’t Let Your Startup Make These Design Mistakes

Behance Co-Founder Matias Corea recently spoke at State of the Startup, a monthly New York-based event, focused on the latest startup trends. Asked to speak on the most common mistakes designers make, here are Matias’ top 5 tips:

1. While it’s great to have designers who understand code, they should ultimately focus on design and not both.

2. Interaction design can’t simply rely on the way things look, and has to explore, test and prototype the way the work as well. A sure-fire solution: wireframes!

3.  Typography (and readability) rules everything.

4. “It’s better to have a hole than an A**hole” – Neal Blumenthal. Make chemistry and culture a priority within your team.

5. Focus on the product, no the exit. Success come from quality work and quality work stems from passion – create something you truly care about.

Check out the full article here.