If you’ve got to this blog, you probably already know what we’re about and who we are. But in this field note, I set off wanting to talk about the process of design and how it works here at Summit Systems. Then, as I started to vomit some words into a Google Doc, I realised it wasn’t really the process I wanted to talk about at all. It was the passion for design itself, and for building something with my three mates. Hopefully, it might inspire someone else to create something from the madness that wakes them from their dreams.
Design.
I’d argue it’s the most important process in the business - although Tomo would probably waffle on about some marketing BS (sorry, Tomo).
Before Summit Systems, I had a solid job. One that would be the dream for most people. I finished at 11:00 on Fridays (yep, 11:00 a.m.), got to travel a fair bit, and had genuinely sound bosses, for the most part! There was hardly ever a dull moment in the office, now whether that’s a good thing or not is another story. I had the freedom to design new products, and was rarely stopped if I spent a day sat at a sewing machine because I couldn’t face another one in front of a computer screen.
But the problem was, it wasn’t ours.
As a designer, I’ve always craved to make things. To finish the day with something tangible you can hold on your hands at the end of it. And although I often had that opportunity, it never felt like those products were mine.
At the old job, there were days I’d get properly psyched about a new design tweak or a product concept. I’d go to bed thinking about it.
For a lot of people, having work on their mind at bedtime might sound like a nightmare, but for me, that’s great. Design is my passion and the day I stop going to bed thinking about my designs will be the day I pack it all in and go into designing road signs.
But it turns out that going to sleep with ideas on your mind is the bare minimum.
Until Summit Systems, I never understood that the real excitement, the ideas that make your pulse race, come from the dreams that wake you up.
I’ve been wanting to write a field note about my design process for a while, but I wasn’t sure what bits of knowledge I wanted to pass on, what key aspects I felt to be most important or could be most useful to you. I’m only 28, so it’s not like I’ve got any deep philosophical wisdom to bestow in the grand scheme of things. But then, after a long day on CAD producing technical tent drawings on another random day of working on a Summit Systems project , I woke up at 04:30 with an idea about how we could make tents clip together so you can chat to your mates when it’s pissing it down outside. But that moment, half-asleep, half-alive with excitement, that’s when it hit me.
True passion isn’t going to bed with something on your mind. It’s waking up because of it.
Summit Systems was built on that kind of restless energy, the ideas that don’t let you sleep, the sketches drawn on the back of receipts, the half-baked prototypes that somehow work better than the “proper” ones. That’s what drives us onward. We started Summit Systems in the car, on a trip up to Scotland from just spitballing ideas of names and what we wanted to bring to the outdoor space. Design isn’t just our job; it’s the thing that drags us out of bed at stupid o’clock with a head full of ideas and a notebook that can’t keep up. So if there’s something that wakes you before your alarm - an idea, a problem, a wild dream that won’t let go - go and grab it. That’s where the good stuff lives. That’s where we will be. Or you’ll be seeing my road signs when you’re out and about.
Over and out.
