Olof Schybergson

We recently sat down with Olof Schybergson, CEO and Founder of Fjord to ask some questions about trends and experiences he felt would be impactful to our customers. Fjord is a digital design agency with more than 200 staff in locations in the U.S., UK and Europe. Hipercept has partnered with Fjord and a client to deliver an iPad application that supplements the delivery capabilities of the existing Business Intelligence platform. Previously creative director at Razorfish, Olof has years of experience collaborating with major clients across the US and Europe to develop innovative services and user experiences across various digital platforms. He takes a lead role in some of Fjord’s most important projects, driving creativity and quality, to ensure solutions achieve Fjord’s world-class innovation standards. Olof is considered to be one of the leading minds in the field of digital design with an emphasis on mobile and other non-traditional platforms. Olof, how do you define the digital design space and how do you differentiate Fjord from a traditional design firm? Design is about shaping solutions so that they are easily used and appreciated by people. Designers create great-looking solutions, but at a deeper and more challenging level, digital design is about defining how software behaves. It’s like deciding the personality of software — do you want software that’s ugly and unintelligible, or do you want software that’s attractive, articulate and pleasant to interact with? One difference between Fjord and a traditional design firm is that we spend a lot of time working on the behavior of the experience, rather than merely the surface of it. Another difference lies in the medium we use. Unlike physical material or print, the digital and mobile medium in particular are in a constant state of change, and we have to continuously learn about new platforms and user trends. However, what unites us with traditional design firms is our focus on optimizing the experience for real people — making sure it’s easy to use and pleasing to look at. The focus on good design for digital solutions has increased dramatically in the last few years, which is great for us at Fjor