Meet Jesse Reed | Partner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jesse Reed and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jesse, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
My business partner, Hamish Smyth, and I were both working at Pentagram for Michael Bierut and had started a publishing imprint (Standards Manual) in 2014. In 2016 we both had the feeling that we were ready to move on from Pentagram, so we decided to focus on the publishing imprint full time as well as start our own design practice. We felt that that the momentum and timing was right both in our professional and personal lives. Order was born in 2017 and and focused on developing brand identities and design systems for a range of clients and industries.

What should our readers know about your business?
Our design practice at Order is very methodical and systematic. We pride ourselves on designing not just single components, like logos, but the entire ecosystem of a design language. We do this through rigorous research and discovery phases at the beginning of every project, which I think is different from other studios our size. Everything is for a reason, never decoration.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Brooklyn, NY: Breakfast at Diner, then a coffee next door at Marlow & Sons. Bike down to Redhook and visit the Record Store. Get a sandwich at Court Street Grocers and hang out near the pier. Grab a key lime pie popsicle at the place next to the park. Head back up to Greenpoint for some beers outside at the Pencil Factory. Grab a slice at Paulie Gees to go and sit at Transmitter park for sunset. One more drink (frozen pina colada) at Broken Land around the corner.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are two designers and mentors that I owe my career to—the first was one of my professors at The University of Cincinnati, Gordon Salchow. Sadly, Gordon passed away in 2019, but I was able to stay involved in his life after school, helping to get a book published of his teaching methods. I owe all of my fundamental understandings of designs to him. The second is Michael Bierut, who was my “career mentor” while I worked under him at Pentagram. He never agreed to be my mentor and I never asked, but it happened. The way I think about presentations, conversations, and application of my design practice today stems from everything I observed while working with him.

Website: www.order.design

Instagram: @order.design.nyc

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/order./

Twitter: @order

Other: www.standardsmanual.com www.standards.site

Image Credits
Order.