People come to Artisan with the hope that we can find them work, whether this is on a freelance or permanent basis. Besides carefully scrutinising folios, reading CVs and a intensive interview, our process also includes reference checking.

More often than not we call up previous employers or clients of our candidates that were working directly with them. On occasions we’ll send an email out as some people are hard to catch or overseas.

There are a number of questions that we go through, structured around the kind of roles our candidates have previously had. One of the common questions that we ask in one form or another is ‘What do you think motivates this person?’

Across all areas of Artisan the answer that we hear the most is ‘passion’. Creativity is rarely seen without some level of passion and people do notice. Maybe passion is one of the components to being creative, like tequila to a margarita. Unless passion is the fresh lime juice, the spark that really makes the drink zing, its that note of detectability that only fresh lime/passion can bring to a drink/design.

Drinks aside, its this passion that people have in varying degrees in the design industry that makes them stand out. One of the other things we hear is that people are motivated by working with other creative people. At Artisan, we also feel motivated working with so many creative people in this industry. Every day we are meeting new people and are talking with creative people across different areas from the more traditional inspiring print based campaigns to all new digital advancements.

For some people it is the diversity in their work that inspires them, not having any two days the same. They enjoy being at the forefront of the newest, most cutting edge developments in communication. Knowing what is just around the corner and being in the forefront of technology.

This creative passion is balanced by ‘business’. The industry doesn’t exist for creativities sake, there is the commercial application of this creativity whether it be for communication or function. Even with this commercial nature of the industry, very rarely do we hear that people are motivated by money. I’m not suggesting that all of the people in the design industry are benevolently bestowing their creativity upon the world for the good of humanity and the planet; perhaps its better to say that isn’t the key motivator but probably ranks in the top five.

Its reassuring to be asking so many people in our reference checks about our candidates and hearing that being passionate and surrounding themselves with passionate people are great motivators. This is also a motivator for us at Artisan. In our office we are passionate about what do and we enjoy being connected to an extended community of passionate creative people.