Thinking About Choosing A Niche For Your Design Agency? Read This First

We all grow comfortable with certain types of work and experiences over time. Some people gain expertise in one area, so they begin to focus on it more and more. They create a niche for themselves.

But designers should think twice before growing too comfortable with one specific area of work.

Adapting to the needs and nuances of different brands is one of the biggest challenges designers face. You have to be flexible enough to work on a high-end brand like Mercedes-Benz, while also feeling comfortable producing a great ad for McDonalds.

Developing that flexibility isn’t easy. But it’s well worth it because you’ll be able to work for a wide variety of clients.

If you can’t diversify your designs, you may become stuck — your portfolio will be too narrow and you won’t grow as a designer. It’s better to stay agile and pursue opportunities as they come. Here’s what I’ve found after decades of designing for a variety of brands, from Coca-Cola and Twitter to a number of early stage startups.

It’s human nature to gravitate towards a niche.

Every designer has a preference about what type of clients they’d rather work for. Personally, I feel more comfortable working for high-end brands, rather than those with mass appeal.

It’s natural for individuals to have a certain bias in one direction or another.

We each have our own aesthetic taste. We dress in a certain way. Paint our walls certain colors. We’re individuals. As designers, it’s difficult not to let our characteristics seep into our work.

But you have to separate what you expect of the brand from what the client wants to communicate. You can’t always bring your biases along with you.

It’s hard, but it’s something you have to work on as a designer. If you can’t separate yourself from the work, you’ll end up producing a bunch of designs that all look the same.

You have to constantly fight your urge to stay comfortable.

I know designers who specialize in one particular industry — and they do it extremely well. I don’t mean to suggest that having a niche is all bad.

There are just consequences to working that way.

I have a friend who only works for surf-related companies, and he’s great at it. If you’re in the surfing industry, he’s the guy to hire. But Mercedes-Benz won’t be calling anytime soon. He’s got a very narrow list of companies that can hire him because he’s incredibly specialized.

I’m not saying you have to be able to work in every industry under the sun. I don’t know any designer who’s great at working for every type of company. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t be the guy you’d want to hire for a surf-related design job.

But you should keep your mind and your portfolio as open as possible. You shouldn’t get so comfortable that you lose your ability to adapt.

You’ll enjoy your work more when you keep it diverse.

I’m fascinated by different industries, and that experience transcends the daily work. It’s fun. And it should be — you should enjoy the experience of designing.

When you work within a variety of industries, you get to learn about how different people run their businesses, what their processes are, what they’re trying to communicate. You meet people from different industries, different backgrounds, different countries.

It helps open your mind and gives you a chance to learn about a diverse group of people.

As you meet more people and expand your experiences, you’ll notice a real change in your professional development. It’s impossible not to grow as a person and as a designer as you branch out and leave your comfort zone.

You never know where an opportunity or a new experience will lead you.

When I was working with Coca-Cola, I helped create a campaign for Coca-Cola Black. It was essentially Coca-Cola with a little coffee in it. At the time, I was happy to be getting experience with such a huge company, but I didn’t really expect to get much out of it. I just wasn’t that excited.

It turned out to be a fantastic experience that helped me grow tremendously as a professional.

Every time you leave your comfort zone, you come back with something new. At big companies like Coca-Cola, you’ll learn a lot about processes. You’ll get to work closely with a lot of great people, and you’ll grow professionally.

At startups, you’re the one bringing all the experience. Whatever you do will have a huge impact on the company. You learn how to deal with that pressure and how to assist the team and guide them through the process.

Becoming hyper-specialized tends to limit your exposure to those different possibilities.

If you reject opportunities and stay in a niche too long, you may look around one day and realize there aren’t any opportunities to pursue. So, don’t let yourself get stuck. Take a chance and continue to explore different avenues while they’re open to you.