I take it personally
Personal investment in branding is not a policy we adopted — it’s the only way we know how to work. Every project that has left this studio since 2004 carries some part of us in it, for better or worse. That personal investment in branding is what separates a mark that lasts from one that simply gets approved.
Sometimes I get involved in a branding project where I accidentally bump into people who think halfway there is a good start.
Thinking like that will only get you in trouble.
In this immense and fast-paced communication world, the importance of branding is probably as high as it will ever be. The branding, the story, and the product must be done, finished, perfect, over the limits, and through a few brick walls. It sounds like a lot of work. Well, it is.
Is perfection worth the trouble?
Imagine you put something out, knowing it could be better. That little voice in your head would just not stop yelling. Most of the time, perfection is an illusion in the pursuit of that form, but you can get close, and it is worth it.
The trouble is, when it is out, it is out.
And there is nothing you can do about it (not in the short term). Most of the time, you blow your chance. A high percentage of people will click that link the first time you share it, read what you have to say, check the product you have, and see the service. This will not happen the second or third time you tell people what you are doing.
Remember the costs of hiring the wrong person to do the job—any job? Or the time you need to do it again—all over again?
How do I change that?
We usually hear, “Don’t take things personally. It’s only business.”
Perhaps it’s not your business, but it is mine!
One of the most important things is to get personally involved. Those little design and concept things are a big part of us. So I take it personally. Everything. From start to finish, yes, working like this will get you in trouble. It happens. It wouldn’t be the first time we lost a client because of that—since there is no joy in standing down from a project, we must do everything in our power to explain all of the ups and downs of this before we start. If not, time and effort will be wasted on both sides, and you can’t get them back. You have the vision—that is why they hire you. Our minds are trained to know how a project will evolve over the years. The only way to see that is by getting completely involved in it—the same way as the client must be. In this way, we can predict how certain things will work over time, but make sure you:
I demand you all work on a solution.
Demand that you are talking and working with decision-makers.
Deliver mid-range results and trust your intuition.
Double-check if they know you take everything personally and what that does to your work process.
They are there for the project, and we are here for the craft and visions we possess.
Are you ready for a long-term relationship?
There is an important catch to this whole thing. To deliver, you need to think of the client, and the client needs to completely understand your vision. It takes around two years of working together to achieve that.
In more than 20 years of doing things, I would rather see projects done as they should be than halfway there.
What Personal Investment in Branding Actually Demands
See where personal investment shows up in the workDon’t miss the next essay. Signup for our newsletter
⸻ Newsletter signup
Should designers code?
Should designers code? We've been asking ourselves that question since 2004 — across identities, interfaces, and campaigns where design met production head-on. The answer depends entirely on what kind of designer you want to be, and what kind of work you want to make. Should designers code is the wrong binary; the real question is how much of the medium should you understand before you hand it off.
Do What You Don’t Know
Do what you don't know — this is the only instruction we've ever given ourselves that consistently produced something worth keeping. Doing what you know is maintenance; it sharpens the tool but never changes the hand that holds it. We've built 25 years of work, 128 projects, and every award worth mentioning by leaning into the thing we hadn't yet figured out how to do.
Why Are We Searching for Clarity?
Clarity in design is what every brief promises and almost nothing delivers. We've been watching this gap widen for two decades — between what communication claims to say and what it actually lands. Searching for clarity isn't a trend. It's a signal that something structural has gone wrong.
There Is Only One Right Way to Publicly Commission Design
Public design commissioning is not a matter of preference — there is a right way and everything else. We've worked through enough flawed briefs, misaligned procurement structures, and well-meaning but broken processes to know exactly where the public commissioning of design goes wrong, and what it looks like when it doesn't.
The Importance of Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence design is not a soft skill — it's the hardest discipline in visual communication. We've spent two decades building identities that don't just look right, they feel true. That gap between looking and feeling is where emotional intelligence design does its real work.
If You Were Ever a Developer, This Is Your Time to Return
Developers returning to coding right now are walking into something different than what they left. The tools got faster, the frameworks multiplied, and somewhere in that churn the advantage quietly moved — away from raw output, toward judgment. If you built things before and stopped, developers returning to coding after a break carry something the continuous practitioners often don't: distance, and the clarity that comes with it.
What is the one positive impact the brand wants to have
Brand positive impact is the question we ask before anything else — before colour, before form, before the first mark on paper. Not what the brand sells, but what shift it causes in the people who encounter it. That single answer, when we find it, becomes the gravitational centre everything else orbits.
The highest award for a designer: finished work, payment, and client bragging
Designer success metrics are rarely what the industry tells you they are. We've delivered 128 projects across two decades, and the measure that holds is deceptively simple: the work is out in the world, the payment landed, and the client is doing your marketing for you. Those three moments, in sequence, define whether a project actually succeeded.