In this month’s meeting, we came back to the question of defining better who and where we want to be. It’s still hard for us answering the question of who are we. While we were discussing several ideas and positions, the word different (or the expression “to do things differently”) came up repeatedly. And after saying it a lot, we began to realize that we were creating so many high expectations that were never reached, and wondering whether in fact being different was that important for us at this time. Inevitably, one day we want to make a difference, but what does it take to achieve this? Does the customer seek us to have things done well or to have them done differently?
We began to question if we have a solid foundation and if throughout the projects that we have been developing the final result is exactly what we wanted.
This has led us to question what customers are looking for when they hire our services and to realize that while we do not yet have an established name in the industry, customers are essentially looking for us to materialize their vision with little openness to our opinion. While we strive to deliver the best work we can, we can not override the customer’s wishes, even if sometimes it’s not the best for them.
We dream of the day when we will have the total trust of the client. We want to be able to enforce our vision, but because the client asked for it.
We tried to follow the idea of thinking differently, but the truth is that when we were still learning to do well, and defining our work bases and methods, we got lots of projects and ended up forgetting that we were only in the early stages of our career. We have to stop for a bit and think of our process the same way we think of designing. First, we learn all the rules, and then, when we feel comfortable with them, we break them.
Inferiority syndrome — it is common knowledge that every artist feels it. We always think other people’s work is better than ours. The truth is that we often look at projects from other designers or design studios, and we think they have a different, more striking look or feel. We feel that we never accomplish what we idealize, we always fall short. We live in a time and space where we are constantly bombarded by diversified references from many directions. They inspire us, define our style, and make each design different in itself, but still inserted into bigger styles or trends that already exist.
We want to communicate in a way that’s perceptible to all people, we want to make design to be used, we want to design for people and not for designers. The customer, who pays for the service, might be only one person, but in the end, it will end up serving a significant amount of people. So can we achieve readability and comprehension when we create something so different and so conceptual? Will we fall into the mistake of continuing to do projects to please people in our midst? Are they going to pay us for the work? We do not seek validation in the medium but in the end user.
On another matter, related to the client and the projects in general, it is important for us to start managing our expectations better. It is important not to immediately think about the success that a certain task will provide us, because until that happens, there can and should be a long process that can sometimes have some obstacles. Hence, we must try to predict all situations, so that there are no constraints for us or the clients. The goal is to think more rationally, in all scenarios, especially in the worst ones.
On the contrary of trying to maintain a more neutral attitude towards expectations, it is also important for us to celebrate our victories more because, in fact, we have many reasons to celebrate. Either when we deliver an incredible project or a budget is accepted, or even when Marta writes things down in lowercase (inside joke, sorry).
Summing up, let’s focus first on doing things well, and getting people to look for us for our good work. Delivering perfect things without errors is the top priority for us right now. This will be our foundation from now on. We believe that this way we will win the trust of the client, and only then we will be able to develop truly different projects.
We’ll document our journey, and we hope you join us and find it helpful, even if it’s by learning what NOT to do!
‘Till next month,
96STUDIO.
