Type of work is one of the largest cultural building block of any studio, as the majority of the time in any studio is spent immersed in the work.
What follows are the questions you should be asking yourself before the phone rings and prospective clients ask you if you’d like to take on a project. Your answers to these questions, and how they may overlap (or not) with your staff’s answers, will help you better understand where you can take your studio portfolio.
Customer types
What industries do you want to work with? As an example: health care or consumer electronics?
What size of client do you prefer? Working with small companies or solely the Fortune 100?
Are you working with for-profit companies and ventures? Or are you focusing on opportunities from the nonprofit sector?
How deeply are you entrenched in helping to shape your client’s business? Are you a strategic partner, or seen more as an executional vendor?
What types of brands are you seeking to work with? Startups or established businesses?
What ethical stance do you take on certain types of clients? As an example: for some studios, working with a religious organization may not be considered appropriate, while others would jump at the chance.
Discipline and practices of design
What types of design does your studio want to practice? Print design or interactive? Industrial design or service?
What tangible things do you want to generate? One of the benefits of working on physical products, designed environments, and brand is that there is evidence of what you’ve created, which staff can point at. For interactive products and advertising, however, you may blink and miss it.
On what scale do you want to operate? As an example: If your firm focuses on branding, do you want to create simple identity systems or ones with hundreds of moving parts?
What other disciplines might you want to partner with? As an example: An interior designer may partner with an architecture firm to design a space.
Style of delivery
What length of projects do you seek? Do you prefer short-term projects, or would you enjoy working on an engagement that may last years?
Are there specific delivery processes you would prefer over others? As an example: some designers like to work in a controlled waterfall-style project process, while others like the close collaboration and constant change that emerges from an agile or scrum-based project process.
Where are the clients located? Are you fine with working with clients in a completely virtual manner, or do you prefer face-to-face interaction?
What level of security do you want as part of the client relationship? As an example: Do you desire a retainer with a client, where you have guaranteed revenue at the cost of freedom? Or do you generate revenues from flat fees, causing the staff to regularly propose and secure new work as part of their work life? This can influence the studio atmosphere.
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Anything you'd add to this list? See last week's post if you're interested in how type of work fits into the building blocks of design studio culture.
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