When Paul Yuen joined Agathon Group in 2010 as Art Director, his addition to the team ignited a rebranding of the company, and the creation of the first visual interpretation of Marvin — the company’s customer support robot. Since then, Paul has continued his commitment to strategic and visual aspects of design, spearheading many successful rebrandings, and website design projects for clients.
“I really enjoy coming up with good strategic tools for our clients, and helping them think through what will work best for them,” Paul said. “Partially, that happens through onsite discovery meetings and partially, that happens through the design and development process.”
During a typical discovery meeting, Agathon Group staff meet with a client before diving into actual design or development work. They collaborate together on strategy and branding, and align design goals with the purpose and desired outcome of the project at hand. By starting with the end in mind, we are able to build exactly what is needed.
For our AGhosted clients, Paul’s also our go-to person for custom WordPress designs and theme development. He sometimes helps troubleshoot issues with WordPress sites, and brings clients up to speed on how to use their new website with post-design training.
If you’ve had Agathon Group redesign your website, Paul has almost certainly had a hand in the design and front-end development.
Paul brings a strong background in the advertising and marketing industry, and heart for non-profit organizations to his work at Agathon Group. He contributes to the “Do Good” company culture, and said he believes that strong communication is one way Agathon Group is different from other companies.
“Agathon Group staff members all possess strong written communication skills, and a solid understanding of one another’s competencies and skills,” Paul shared. “Combined, that make us a very strong team, and enables us to effectively communicate with one another and our clients.”
One of Paul’s favorite exercises during the design process is when he gets to run a Live Design session. Paul usually sends the client a design to review ahead of time, and then tweaks that design in real-time as the client offers feedback.
“The result is that I get their feedback, along with the rationale behind it, and we can discuss how that will impact goals,” Paul said. “If need-be, those changes can be implemented on the fly and in some cases, if the purpose for the change doesn’t line up with the goal, we can establish that quickly, and dismiss the change.
“My work tends to have the most impact on clients like this, and I find that fulfilling,” Paul added.
In his free time, Paul enjoys racing autocross, and finds that in some ways, the planning stages of both aren’t too dissimilar.
“Racing autocross is really about two things: knowing the limits of your vehicle, and knowing the course so you can anticipate what to do next,” he said. “Design is similar in that it’s about knowing the constraints of the context of the content, and anticipating how those may change over time.
“Before racing the course, drivers walk it from start to finish and study the curves,” he continued. “The Discovery process in our projects provides us similar insights in that it helps us understand the best approach to reach the goals for both our client and their users.”
Paul freelanced with the Agathon Group prior to joining the team in 2010, and like several staff, worked at Gospel Communications International. There, he worked with Morgan Foster, and served as a design lead for online properties, like BibleGateway.com and Gospel.com. They worked on a few videos while there together — something we hope to reprise in the near future with AGhosted training videos.
Paul lives in Tucson, Ariz., and enjoys photography, illustration, and producing animation, music, and video.
Vanessa is responsible for coordinating conference sponsorships and creating marketing collateral to help support our team and public-facing story.
One comment on “Hosting by Real People & for Real People with Paul Yuen”
Hey Paul, thank you for all your help with my site! I appreciate you very much.