Mark Garcia- Design Driven Innovation
Vice President and Creative Director of Majestyk
by Elizabeth Lavis
|14 Sept 2021
Mark Garcia, Vice President and Creative Director of New York City-based Majestyk, has walked on the artistic side for his entire life. “I’ve always been the creative type for as long as I can remember,” he said. “Growing up, I was always drawn to fine arts, and I was convinced for a long time that was what I was going to do for a living.”
Although Garcia clearly showed a creative flair from a young age, he felt pressured to go into a more “practical” career path, striking a compromise between artistic pursuits and a lucrative future by majoring in graphic design.
“Graphic design bridged the gap,” he said. “It allowed me to be both artistic and analytical as well as create work that had functionality and meaning.” Although Garcia leans heavily into the art world for inspiration, he still relies on business concepts and terminology to drive his design. “When I first got into the tech and product design world, I was introduced to the concept of a Minimum Viable Product, or MVP,” he said. “The idea behind it is to create a product that has the bare minimum feature set while still delivering an immediate impact.”
Before stumbling across MVP, Garcia’s work needed to be “pixel-perfect” before going out into the world. “The MVP model turned things on its head for me,” he said. “It showed me that the desire to be pixel-perfect can actually hinder my creative process and that sharing work early has a lot of benefits.”
Other skills, like a comprehensive understanding of design fundamentals and theories, allow Garcia to break design rules logically and develop his own design approach, which he called design-driven innovation. “This inside-out approach to design focuses on the idea that creating new meaning to things in the world we live in will lead to innovation,” he said. “I’m always thinking of creative solutions to simple problems in our day-to-day life and how we can design those experiences better.”
With his systematic approach to all things design-related, Garcia’s understanding of the design world allows him to quickly establish rapport and trust with clients. When problems arise, he takes them in stride. “I’ve learned that you have to take everything with a grain of salt,” he said. “ Not everyone you work with is going to love everything that you do. It takes time, especially with new clients, to understand and learn what their aesthetic and vision are.”
Garcia doesn’t take criticism personally and instead views it as a chance to grow and learn, fostering a healthy and open relationship with the client moving forward. “Client relationships, like any relationship, are about working together and building trust over time,” he said. “Getting a client to believe in your judgment is all about communication and education.”
He cautions designers about making spontaneous decisions without talking them through with the client. “The challenge comes in properly communicating the reasoning behind your decisions and helping clients understand why one solution is better than another,” he said. “For particularly stubborn clients, backing up your decision-making with quantitative or qualitative data is a great way to get buy-in.”
For Garcia, the highlight of his work is being able to work with people and companies to achieve their full potential through genuinely inspired design. “What I enjoy most is being able to solve problems and help people through design,” he said. “I love the idea that I can create experiences that people interact with every day; experiences that become part of our routines as a society.”
For fresh inspiration, Garcia hits the road and explores new destinations and experiences. “Traveling is one of my biggest passions,” he said. “I draw a lot of my creative inspiration from life experiences, and being able to put myself into new, different, and unique situations have always kept my passion for creating alive.”
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