Prague, September 21st, 2022

Creative Nights is an award-winning independent studio founded in 2014 by Marek Suchanek, who believes good design must touch both the heart and the mind for it to have lasting relevance. Based in Prague, the studio designs experiences that enable people to feel engaged and awakened in a postprint era.

Martin Ehrlich is the Art Director and Partner at Creative Nights Studio. In an interview with TIA, he described his career at the studio, where he first started as a senior designer, and highlighted the features that make Creative Nights stand out. He also listed the things that a first-class interactive experience should have.

To kick things off, what do you love the most about Prague?

An unusual mix of extremely rich history, vibrant culture and great people.

What’s a regular day like in Martin Ehrlich’s shoes?

I wake up around 8:30, get up and try to get the studio before 10.While having breakfast, I usually go through emails and try to deal with most of communication and business needs for the day. Then I’m spending the rest of the day between designing, the team and our clients. We also drink a lot of Club Mate (if you’re not European, find what it is!) and play a lot of foosball during the day at the office. I try to wrap up everything before 8pm and then head to spend time with some culture, friends and my beautiful wife.

You went from senior designer at an agency, to freelancer, to partner at a studio. What were the biggest challenges you faced when going through these transitions?

Each of these changes can be a bit scary, as with each step you are gaining a big piece of responsibility and losing a big piece of certainty. The reward on the other hand is getting the freedom and opportunities you’d never dream of being a designer at an agency, no matter how big or good it is.

Being a partner at a studio is a challenge on its own as you start to have responsibilities far beyond what a designer normally does. Taking care of a business is tough, but it has been a wild ride for me so far!

What makes Creative Nights stand out?

Definitely the way we approach every project – with an intense care for emotions and creativity in design. Captivating and immersing people in the story of our client. We believe it’s essential to design experiences that enable people to feel engaged, awakened in a world, that has an increasingly fragmented attention.

Tell us about a recent project you’ve worked on that you’re proud of.

Our team will soon be releasing an interactive ecommerce platform for our client from Paris, who is working in the field of luxury modern jewelry. I’m super proud of the way we brought their story to their audience through a design full of emotion, interactivity and beauty while retaining great navigation, usability and accessibility. We accepted a challenge of bringing something special to a functional platform and enjoyed working towards an outstanding result.

What are the key components of a first-class interactive experience?

As mentioned above, we live in a world where everybody’s attention gets more and more fragmented. In that world brands need to connect to their audience on an emotional level to create a real connection between them and their customers. We have many tools to achieve that like storytelling, design, motion or copy. A first-class interactive experience should have all of that combined with a flawless execution and outstanding content.

You’ve been able to collaborate with so many brands in your career, but what mistake have you seen from companies trying to stay relevant?

I would say looking too much at what the others are doing around them instead of finding their unique voice. In recent years, I’ve worked for most tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Meta and Twitter and I’ve always seen them getting inspired one in another. While I am aware that the stakes are extremely high for companies of this scale, I wish to see more uniqueness and soul in what they do in future.

“The perfect client brief…”, does it exist?

A perfect design brief does exist. But for me the trick is it’s not the client who is responsible for it. Every creative individual or company has a very specific process in place and the brief should always answer specific questions arising from that process. If you’re a creative, prepare your perfect brief. Then create a template for your clients from it – your onboarding will be a smooth sailing from that moment onwards.

Accessibility can be difficult to acknowledge; how do you ensure that your clients understand what you are recommending and all users are considered during projects?

Most of businesses in the US and EU are now obliged by law to a certain extend of usability in their digital experiences. Since most of our clients are from there, it’s natural for them to listen to us and our recommendation. Accessibility is an extremely important aspect of design – if the client truly cares about their customers, they should care about accessibility too.

Should we expect any new things to come to Creative Nights in the coming months?

We’ve been working super hard since the beginning of this year on some of our best work to date, whether it’s branding, marketing websites, creative ecommerce or interactive WebGL experiences. Stay tuned!

How would you describe the interactive industry in Prague?

We’ve got some good big product design companies like STRV and big product design teams in companies like Avast or Kiwi. What I’m still missing, is more creative studios, agencies or individuals, creating emotional, memorable pieces of interactive design.

Three top tools you can’t live without?

Figma, Adobe Photoshop, Email

Do you have a message for young creatives considering a career in this industry?

I see so many young designers wanting to take easy shortcuts at the beginning of their career by blindly following latest trends and imitating what they see online, which results in a sea of indistinguishable half-baked projects out there. Take your time, experiment, fail, try again, do your own thing – it will pay off in the long term.

Thanks Martin!

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