A new category of design firm

By Christian Marc Schmidt

The recent launch of our new website became an opportunity to revisit our company mission and take stock in how far we have come.

Since Schema was founded in 2012, our vision has been to build a new category of design firm for the information age, a company based on the idea of creating knowledge and exploring the big issues that define our time.

Over the last three years since we opened our doors, we have been fortunate to have had many great opportunities to realize this vision. We helped the Henry Art Gallery make contemporary art more accessible. We worked with Bloomberg View on defining opinion in today’s world. We worked with the University of Washington to visualize bills in Congress and help people gain a better understanding of the legislative process. And, we continue to help scientists combat grievous diseases in our ongoing collaboration with Amgen.

As a firm focused on the creation of knowledge, our goal is to prove that design can have lasting value in the world, through communication, critique, analysis and use. Knowledge is the precursor to action, and we believe that with the growing amount of information that we create and consume, it is more important than ever that people have the right tools to turn information into action.

As we move into our fourth year, we hope our work will continue to inspire dialog on the role of design and the value it can provide in the world.

Christian Marc Schmidt is Founder and Principal of Schema, a research and design firm headquartered in Seattle.