Introducing Rainfall, a new design studio positioned to create better work out of closer client relationships
We are a new agency trying to create relationships with clients that allow us to do better work than they might receive elsewhere. That’s a big goal, and I think it’s time to share just how we plan to do it.
When I introduce Rainfall to new people I tell them that I started the agency out of a desire to be more flexible with clients. I tell them that I believe that there are companies out there who understand the strength of great design, they simply don’t have the means to hire a top agency for their work.
This is often followed with a number of questions, the most common one asking how flexibility extends past budgets and timing, so I wanted to sit down and officially introduce Rainfall to the world by discussing what makes us unique. Maybe if we’re lucky one of you will consider this an invite to ask us to participate in a project with you!
What makes Rainfall different from other agencies?
As a company we have only existed in service of startups. Now, our employees have worked for large established brands in other jobs, but all of the work that has been created within the walls of Rainfall has been for companies that have existed for two years or less. This means that we have a great deal of experience working in scenarios where a product roadmap changes, multiple ideas need testing, and priorities adjust on a daily basis. We can adapt to these changing currents, and this is what I mean when I use the term flexible.
We can deal with changing tides
Design is tricky in that you need to have some sort of plan in place to embark on each individual project. What are the goals? What content are we working with? Who are the audience we are trying to reach? All of these questions need answers, and traditionally the first couple weeks of any project are set aside to find them in a process known as discovery. This investment of time makes it very difficult and costly to switch gears on a project or stop one in favor of another, because the exercise needs to be repeated each time.
We don’t have a traditional Discovery process. Instead, we focus our long-term energy on really getting to know a client’s brand. This goes beyond reading guidelines or having a conversation and extends to a more personal relationship between our designers and our clients. We spend time to get to know them personally, we use their product, we speak to their customers, and we tease out what they really aspire for their company to be.
Our approach is similar to what you’d find in a branding agency, and we do it because we know that if we truly understand a client’s brand we’ll understand the motivations for every project without having to complete a Discovery. We know their audience, understand their aesthetic, and can work quickly to define goals because they are almost second nature.
This approach allows Rainfall to stop any individual project in its tracks in favor of focusing on another. In a world where investors might react to new information, or product owners want to target a new audience, reallocate a budget, or test an alternative approach, this model is necessary. We don’t find it discouraging, instead we understand that it’s the reality of our business.
While it might be harder to create a nice portfolio piece to showcase when projects stop or morph, we have decided that the best “portfolio” we can have are clients telling other potential clients that we invest strongly in relationships that allow their businesses to grow and change.
We offer the same services as other agencies for less
Please don’t think of us as a “discount agency” we just budget well! The second most common followup I get when I say we understand startups is “So then you understand that we have no budget.” Money has forever been an uncouth subject as part of design, but I want to bring it to the forefront. We do not work for free, we have simply kept our overhead low to provide more competitive pricing. As I sit and write this, I’m doing so from a WeWork seat that costs Rainfall $750 a month. I would love for us to have a high-end office that I could take beautiful photos of, but for now it makes more sense to optimize our business to focus instead on clients who have great opportunities but can’t afford an agency rate.
What is an agency rate? Right now in a digital design studio it’s about $225-$250 per hour for each person working on your project. That typically includes a producer and two designers (of varying titles) at the minimum. That’s $750 per hour, or enough to pay for this seat before I finish a cup of coffee on the first day of each month.
Rainfall prices at $170 per hour, and because we believe in personal relationships each project typically only has one or two people on it, unless of course it’s large. I often have to convince clients that their projects only need one or two designers rather than 10, but when they see the savings in cost they quickly get onboard. Even better, our monthly retainer structure drops that price even more, because we value the visibility of seeing funds come in regularly. More on that if you reach out!
It’s important to note that in terms of expertise and output, our clients get the same work that they would get from larger agencies because we used to work at larger agencies. That’s probably the biggest secret here. If you want great work you go to great designers who work in an environment where they can focus on creativity rather than management. Creativity is all that we do, and some people (other than us) have called us great designers!
We can work really fast
“I have a board meeting next week” are words I hear a lot. Apparently boards like to meet, and they like to see design when they do. When I founded Rainfall, one of my goals for the first year was to do as much work as possible in order to get our name out, and so I setup the company in a way that can deliver high quality work in aggressive timeframes. It’s not rocket science, having seasoned designers increases speed, but then so does having close relationships to people all over the world. We like to stay local, but in case clients have a need, we have designers in Hong Kong, Seattle, New York, Spain, Italy, and Ukraine ready to chase daylight.
I created this global network because I want to build a culture where work is made fast, but not at the expense of our employees’ family lives. We work a 9:00–6:00 as much as possible and I’d like to keep it that way. Designers stay fresh, excited and most creative when they can have a life and see their families like normal human beings, especially when there is such good TV to watch!
We don’t spend time pitching
There are a number of reasons for our no-pitch policy, ranging from cost to idealism within the design community, but the main reason is that it fundamentally contradicts our approach to having close working relationships with our clients. In what world could we possibly create meaningful, relevant work for a client we’ve spent no time with? It’s like making dinner for someone without checking to see if they’d like it. It’s crazy, and we hope that clients know it’s crazy.
Regardless we understand that people don’t like to get into relationships without going on a first date, so we have approaches we call the mini project and the workshop. In the mini project we discuss with our clients a problem they have that we could potentially solve or at least define an approach to solve within a week. They contract a week’s worth of work and we complete the project, demonstrating our approach as well as the quality of our result at a fraction of the cost of the full relationship. The workshop is constructed the same way but usually involves just one or two days where we come and do a whiteboard or brainstorming session with our client about their larger project. Both of these approaches result in work that the clients can actually use, and we arrived at it without providing our services for free.
Without pitching our new business strategy is quite simple: focus on the work that we do have, make it the best it can be, and new work will follow. Simple, effective, and maintains the philosophy that our clients are our number one priority.
We want to work with everyone, no kidding!
Currently we have clients in the sectors of education, insurance, communication, logistics, discovery, entertainment, and lifestyle. I love coming to work and seeing the vast differences in the problems each of our clients are looking to solve and how passionate each one is about issues that another will not even think about today.
We are experts in user experience and design, and we want to apply our thinking to any project that comes our way, even if we don’t have experience in its specific sector. In fact, a fresh set of eyes are what we think make for the best end products because we’re not tarnished by the norms of that line of business. We’ll ask why competitors look and function the way they do, question whether we can do things differently, then execute something that is truly unique.
We’re excited about the future
I’m happy that I (finally!) had the opportunity verbalize what Rainfall stands for, thanks for coming along for the ride. We’re still very new and looking forward to what the future will bring. If you’d like to hear more or see some of our work please shoot us a note, we love getting email.
Thanks!
-Marc
Owner and Designer at Rainfall
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Rainfall is a new design studio in New York and Seattle that works with early stage startups and established brands to define and express their experiences online. rainfall.today
