Friday Q & A: Josh Goldblum on bluecadet’s awards

The trophy case at bluecadet Interactive must be getting a bit crowded.
Fresh off of an Emmy, the Northern Liberties-based interactive firm beat out the Museum of Modern Art this week to snag a silver in the Muse Awards, the awards for museum exhibit designers.
Thanks to art director Troy LeChance’s and owner Josh Goldblum’s background working for museums, the firm’s portfolio has a handful of exhibits and multimedia offerings from places like the Smithsonian and the Holocaust Museum. The award-winning piece, however was a look at the Lincoln Memorial through the eyes of its park rangers.
We talked with Goldblum on his way back from vacation about the award, the state of Philly design and why he doesn’t want to run a successful design firm.

Can you give us a brief history of bluecadet?

We are an eight-person interactive design studio in Northern Liberties, right off of the Piazza. Me and my art director, Troy LeChance started in the Smithsonian and National Portrait Gallery. I then went out on my own and now we’re working mostly on museums and exhibit stuff.
We’ve done work for people like the Holocaust Museum and National Indian Museum. Then, about three years ago, I moved to Philly and began staffing up.
Can you tell us about the work that led to the award?
We ended up working with Videoart Productions and Lightspeed Media to have the Lincoln Memorial park rangers tell their stories. They have such an attachment to the monument and they have a lot of historical information. They wanted a way for people to explore the monument online without actually having to visit.
We created 21 panoramas where people could go into the monument and go all around and threaded all these things together with the help of Joshua Cogan’s photography.
What would you say is the state of Philly interactive agencies? It seems like there’s quite a few.
Actually, I don’t think Philly has as many agencies as some other cities, such as Portland, Austin or Brooklyn. I feel like there’s a lot of talent, but there doesn’t seem to be a cohesive scene as of yet. We’ve been doing roundtables with Joseph Rinaldi at The Creative Group to try and form a Philly community and Philly design identity.
Philly is as fertile ground as any to start a shop, and I think we could rival Brooklyn. We have lower overhead and great talent.
Do you have any advice for freelancers trying to make the transition to a full interactive shop?
Well, maybe I should backtrack because for us it wasn’t a straight path. When I was down in DC, I was working with a lot of freelancers. I was also doing a lot of the work myself. Gradually, what happened, is I filled where was I lacking and I realized I was much better and managing talent.
When we came to Philly I made the commitment to hire on people that were much better than me. My role became than one of managing talent and creating a strategic vision. When you want to do larger projects you have to work with other people.
A lot is actually thanks to Troy (LeChance), he basically brought a lot of expertise into the shop. The projects aren’t as fly by night as they used to be.
My advice, though, to anyone is to make sure the work interests you. We want to be more than just a successful design firm.
Every Friday, Technically Philly brings you an interview with a leader or innovator in Philadelphia s technology community. See others here.