An Interview with Q Manning CEO of Bleutuna Limited

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Q Manning CEO of Bleutuna Limited. Bleutuna is a film & production house that also tackles some design and marketing work as well. Q is based here in Austin, Texas and is also an accomplished graphic designer. Below is a transcript of our conversation.

Q, thanks for taking the time to participate in this interview. I really do appreciate it. Can you tell us a little bit about your background, and how you got started as a designer? Where did it all begin?

I got started as a designer pretty much by accident. In 1996, this magical thing called the internet blew up and suddenly there was this huge need for graphic designers. Because the web didn’t require expensive investment in printed materials, companies and individuals were far more willing to let someone green and novice handle their online presence.

I bought my first computer, with the aid of my ex-mother-in-law, and taught myself HTML and PaintShopPro. A bit later the W3 released the specs for CSS and so I quickly taught myself that. Then Photoshop and then Illustrator. From that point on, I just continued to do all the free websites I could for people, really growing my skills and my portfolio. I’m not a proponent of people doing work for free usually, unless you’re starting out. That’s really the best way to get good at the design game - just to do as much work as you can for as many people as you can, so you can learn to problem solve on lots of different levels.

I did some yearbook design for Heritage Publishing company, then onto Aristotle Internet in Little Rock, Arkansas, where I functioned more as an HTML & ASP programmer. Eventually the company let me do a few designs here and there but I was never as good as the people they had working full-time. Aristotle’s design mindset is probably the biggest over-arching influence on what I do. That company has always had this amazing attention to detail, where no element is ever allowed to just be a “font” or a “photo.” Everything needs a treatment - a border, a shadow, a gradient, a stroke, etc. - before it’s ready to go out to the public.

But people were tossing money around like it was growing on trees, so I interviewed with a few companies in Austin, searching for a design job. Eventually I was offered a position at WhisperWire, Inc. as their Lead Designer, making double what I had been at Aristotle. At WhisperWire I handled everything, whether it was the marketing design for their logo, collateral and datasheets to HCI and Information Architecture design for their PowerSeller telecom application.

Were there any major hurdles for you moving from a production roll to a lead design position at WhisperWire?

When you’ve been on the cropping, compressing and coding side of things, it’s weird to suddenly have to think creatively under a tight deadline. That’s always been tough for me, particularly with the way I design. There are millions of amazing designers out there and lots of them can just knock out a design in 4 to 8 hours with no problem at all. I’m not that way. Im’ very particular and search everywhere for inspiration. It’s hard for me to say “Okay, this is it. I’m done!” that early on in the process.

I look at the portfolios of some designers, friends included, and think, “That’s so far from done by my standards…” but the clients love the work and keep hiring them. These designs aren’t bad, mind you, they’re just not finished by my benchmark, which I admit, is stupidly high and at times unnecessary. Does the background really ned to have a texture and a gradient and a pattern? Do the buttons need to have 8 different effects and treatments applied to them? Probably not. But when I step back from a design and feel I’m done, there’s usually a lot of great things to find if you look hard enough. I attribute that to the inspiration from Aristotle.

So, to answer the original question, getting a design finished quickly and being able to say “Good enough!” is something I still grapple with today.

Tell us a little bit about Bleutuna Limited.

Bleutuna Limited started out as just bleutuna.com (as the official company name) back in 1997, I think. I realized pretty quick that I needed to be more than just my name and back then, I wasn’t going by the moniker Q Manning, either. There was a good week or so that it was actually going to be “fattuna” or “fuzzytuna” but I quickly realized this had sexual connotations that I didn’t want to deal with. I like the color blue and I like tuna, so that’s the name. I chose the french spelling “bleu” because I wanted it to be fancier, never thinking for a moment that someone else would think to put those two words together. Someone’s owned the bluetuna.com domain since I’ve owned bleutuna.com and I’m anxiously awaiting for the for them to give it up. They’ve never done anything with it. I actually have trouble typing the combination b-l-u-e as my hands want to type b-l-e-u naturally.

For years bleutuna functioned as my online identity as well as my company name, with me placing the logo on every page I could. I’ve actually been flattered over the years as I’ve seen three different people rip off what I’ve dubbed as the “cube-stick,” which was originally one of the over 60 logo redesigns I did for WhisperWire back in 2001.

While in college, back in about 2004, Bleutuna became my production company when I started making short films. I brought in some other good people into the fold and we realized there was strength in numbers. Now we’re a full-service video production & marketing company working out of Austin, Texas. We do everything from write, direct, line-produce, post-production and market everything from films to bands to corporate videos. The “cube-stick” logo was updated when “bleutuna.com” officially became “Bleutuna Limited.” It’s still hard for me to capitalize the first letter.

Everyone in the company operates on the same philosophy I do: being specialized in one job is great, but there’s strength in having multiple talents and being able to fit into whatever peg needs you. So at any given time I can direct and someone else can do production design or editing, then we can switch up. Keeps things fresh and interesting and lets us work on lots of different jobs. I hold everyone to a high standard, so there’s a lot of long-nights and unhappy significant others.

There’s actually a British production company called Blue Tuna Productions, as well. Right now, we’re working on two short films, five different feature films in various stages of production, and two television pilots. It’s an exciting time.

What was the road like going from Designer to CEO of a film production company?

It was all very organic and happened by accident. I suffer anxiety disorder and before I went to the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2003, it was crippling. I couldn’t talk to new people, attend parties or even be on elevators with someone I didn’t know. College changed all that, however, and I quickly discovered I was a “leader of men.”

I don’t want that to sound conceited, because notice I didn’t say a great leader or the best leader. Just, y’know, a leader. But once I started to discover that I could help others and that my opinions were valid, I would want to make sure things were getting done. I don’t like indecision at all. I don’t like having meeting after meeting with no solution in site. So I would go into a situation, assess things and if another leader didn’t rear their head, I’d take the reigns.

When some of us started making films together, I had already established this entity called “bleutuna.com” and I had a logo. No one else had a logo, so why not, right? Plus, I usually made a lot of the decisions, so it made sense that we’d all unite under the Bleutuna banner.

Though it’s my company, we handle things by group vote. An issue is brought to the table in a meeting and all of us decide if we want to move forward with it or not. Usually everything’s unanimous, but every now and then there will be one man out. If the group wanted to go in a direction that I knew would be detrimental to the company, I’d override the vote, but our executive team is full of really smart, really talented people and our discussions always bring up the pros and the cons of a situation, so I’ve never had to pull out my veto card.

Right now we do a lot of full-service stuff as it’s all about building the brand name itself. We’ve gotten a lot of good buzz in Austin and we’d like to keep building the brand. Ultimately, however, I’ll separate the company into at least two, if not three, sub-brands that focus on the specific tasks we do: production, post-production and marketing/design work.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the projects that Bleutuna is working on right now?

On the design side we’re working on the marketing & identiy for the tv program “Modos.”

At the time of armageddon, 6 humans find out they’re actually archangels set to defend humanity during the final battle. So it’s big-time, fun stuff.

The pilot’s being shot here in Austin right now with some really great people involved. Once the show gets going, we hope to help out more with the creation of the show itself, instead of just handling the marketing.

Are there any upcoming projects that you would like to make mention of?

Right now my next big project is directing “Dogs of War,” a werewolf film I’ve currently written to be shot in Austin, Texas. I’m a huge werewolf fan and it really bugs me that there are few truly great werewolf films out there. “An American Werewolf in London” and “Silver Bullet” are really the two that come to mind. The werewolf sequence in “Fright Night” is fantastic, I must admit, just as the rest of the film is, but I would classify that more in the category of vampire film.

I’ve got a few big twists in the film that do things with the genre that’s never been done and my plan is to treat the subject with a sense of fear rather than a place of humor. I miss the days of going to the movies and seeing a truly scary American horror film. You still get great things like “Sauna” or “The Substitute” from Europe, but American horror has become a nearly paint-by-the-numbers endeavor. I think of the stuff that truly scares me and then try to capture that.

Our hope is to be shooting at the beginning of next year.

What are your long term plans for Bleutuna? What sort of things can we expect to see from you guys in the future?

Everything will just be expounded upon. As we do more stuff, we’re able to build infrastructure. It’s what any business wants.

You start with a few great clients, then grow with them. Eventually our primary focus will be feature films and we’ll have a sub-branded corporation which functions as the marketing/post-production arm of the company.

You mention having an incredible attention to detail and an extremely high standard when it comes to design work. Why do you think that’s important, and how does that set you apart from your competitors?

I’m not the best designer in the world. Far from it. There are people who are so much better than I am, it’s not even funny. But I do a pretty good job for my clients because I refuse to do cookie-cutter or do what everyone else in the category are doing.

People notice the small details, even if it’s in their subconscious. When you look at something from design-god Sheperd Fairey, the initial power of the image is what hooks you, but you keep looking at all the little detail peppered throughout.

These little details are a quest to find some sort of realism and truth in the piece. To make it deeper, to make it richer. Even something as simple as the submit button on a web page can add a nice chunk of realism to keep people paying attention.

With all of the great stuff that Bleutuna is working on… Why is it still important to you to take on freelance work and maintain a site like makeprettythings.com?

I have an unquenchable desire to create. I love design, in particular and branding specifically, so when I get the opportunity to help someone find their company or organization’s identity, it’s hard to say no. There’s something pure about creating a brand and identity that spans multiple iterations and stands the test of time. It’s a permanence that’s hard to find in other parts of art and design.

What sort of freelance projects are your favorite to tackle, and which ones do you feel bring out your best work?

Like I mentioned before, definitely branding. I love web and print design, but it’s branding that keeps me being a designer. When a client has a rough idea of what they want but is open to suggestion and creativity, and I mean truly open and not just paying lip-service, then those projects turn out great. Two of my recent clients, Firewater Solutions and Lionheart Health, were on opposite ends of the spectrum in how they communicated, but both were open to trying something different. I like to see what competition is doing with their branding, but i don’t like to just rehash. I like to find a new direction for a client, something that makes them feel bigger and better than everyone else in their space.

Finally, What advice would you give to a designer who is just getting started in this day and age?

My biggest advice isn’t something most of them want to read, but it’s the truth: Do things for free. Don’t do things for way cheaper than the competition, because it totally undervalues what we all do, and eventually, they’ll be able to make that money as well. But when you’re just starting out, you don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t have the taste, the sensibilities or the experience to know what is and isn’t going to work for a client.

My first 5 or 6 sites were done entirely for free, for friends, bands or organizations that I was associated with. I was able to cut my teeth on these things and learn what did and didn’t work. Had I charged them, I would have been doing the client and other designers a huge disservice. Just because you have the Adobe Creative Suite doesn’t make you a designer anymore than owning a camera makes you a photographer. Once you know what you’re doing, can critique your work and others, then you’re in a better position to start charging for what you do.

But even with these clients, its important to start building the best practices. Using questionnaires to figure out what they want and need, not offering unlimited revisions, and tell them that normally they should be charged a certain amount, but that you’re doing it for free to help both of you out. Mutually beneficial design is a great thing.

Oh, and the last thing - learn HTML & CSS. Don’t use a WYSIWYG or forego web all together. Most boutiques or companies want someone who is multi-faceted and you do yourself well to be that end-all, be-all answer to their design needs. Otherwise, you’ll always need to be on the lookout for someone who can do your job and more, for the same price.

Follow Q Manning on Twitter.
Visit Bleutuna Limited
Visit MakePrettyThings.com

Photograph by Lesley Sullivan