dale hart

Dale Hart is a partner and creative director at Methodologie, a firm specializing in brand strategy and identity design, investor communications, print and interactive design. His clients include Boeing, the Coca-Cola Company, Four Seasons, Group Health, the MacArthur Foundation, SSA Marine and the Washington State History Museum. With over 20 years of Fortune 500 experience, Hart began his career at a packaging firm in Chicago, where he worked on projects for Procter & Gamble, Jim Beam and Kraft. As creative director, Hart oversees all projects at Methodologie, plays an active role in concept development and provides design leadership on a daily basis. Hart is an in-demand speaker on brand strategy and has presented to the Smithsonian, the International Association of Fundraising Professionals, the Washington State Non-Profit Conference and RGD Ontario's DesignThinkers conference.

Is graphic design a growth industry? There are always opportunities for good thinkers. The public is more designsavvy than ever, and the way people get information has turned completely upside down in the last 10 or 15 years. This creates a challenging environment for designers, but in a good way. The next generation will bring a deeper understanding of technology and communication to the industry, and that is always exciting.

Do graphic designers have a special responsibility to promote a green society? It seems a tipping point has been reached in the last few years, and green issues are paramount in every industry. Our clients are very active in this area, and we are seeing it in highly visible ways, like CSR reports, and less visible ways, like concerns over paper and ink sources and print runs. As designers and communications strategists, we have enormous power in different areas, such as recommendations we make for what kind of print collateral gets created, what kind of content gets moved to the web, the ink and paper we specify and the printers we choose.

By helping our clients produce clear, effective CSR reports on the issues that touch their businesses, we are helping them bring these issues into the open, which is going to drive improvements in green practices and other CSR issues. What gets reported gets improved. Some companies really get it, and they are creating change. Design is a part of that change.

ONE THING I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IS my laptop

FAVORITE MOVIES

Jacob's Ladder
Spirited Away
Office Space

FAVORITE BOOK

Plainsong by Kent Haruf

FAVORITE MUSICIANS

Nick Drake
Elliott Smith
Tool
Johnny Cash

FAVORITE ARTISTS

Gary Hill
Richard Serra
Rebecca Blissell

FAVORITE TV SHOWS

Whatever's on