Our weblog
Updates and articles around our design studio, work, ideas and things we like.
January 9th to 13th
Friday evening is usually the time I set aside for writing a weeknote. Not this time, as my computer fell into a coma (kernel panic) a few hours earlier. After some futile attempts at resuscitation, I surrendered. My MacBook needed professional help. I pulled out my iPhone, opened the Apple store app, tapped on “Genius” and made an appointment. 90 minutes later I shook hands with Henry at the Genius bar. After running some tests, he had bad news: It’s a hardware problem, it’ll probably cost me 200 to 500 Euro to get it fixed and I will be without my computer for a few days.
No matter how good your product or service is, things will go wrong. In these situations – when a product breaks, a software has a bug, a link on a website doesn’t work – the customer experience is at the most vulnerable point. If you handle it the wrong way – au revoir client. But there’s also a huge potential in such situations. If you manage to turn people’s frustration into something positive, like respect, understanding or amusement, you can strengthen your relationship with your customer.
Although I entered the Apple store with a bad feeling and left it with even worse news, the whole experience – from making the appointment to leaving the store – absorbed much of my annoyance. So when I was riding the bus back home, I thought about how often these situations are ignored. Most products or services are designed for the perfect scenario. Very few energy is spent on the situations when things go wrong. It’s nothing people like to think about, so they often deny it or play it down. But something always goes wrong. We should all keep that in mind when designing experiences.
Ok, enough rambling. Here’s the usual rundown of what we’ve been working on this week:
David, our favorite intern, and Philipp continued to work on Enumclaw. Philipp felt a bit under the weather, so he stayed in Berlin. Nevertheless both got a lot done and almost finished this short project.
Christophe had to wear many hats this week. He spent a day out of office for Wapato, went to a meeting and brainstormed with me for Clayoquot and was also involved with Michael and moi on a new project we started this week.
This project – I hereby name you Snoqualmie – is a pretty special to us. It’s a good and well-known product/brand, a competent and friendly project team and a very interesting industry (publishing). But what made us even happier is the way the project came about. But I leave that for next week’s note.
January 2nd to 7th, 2012
Some people asked where the code names we use in our weeknotes come from. Okanogan, Comox, Wenatchee, Ecola, Yakima, Osoyoos, Sequim, Kootenay – these are all names of places in the Pacific Northwest, most of them with Native American origin. I stayed in or passed these places during two wonderful road trips and I thought that the mystical vibes of these names make perfect cryptonyms.
But I’m slowly running out of names. Which means a) I should go on another trip and b) we might need a new nomenclature soon (any suggestions?).
There are a few more names on my list, though. Let me introduce: Enumclaw and Clayoquot, two new projects we started this week.
Philipp and David took care of the former, splitting work between macro and micro levels and creating complex photoshop documents together. The name Enumclaw means “thundering noise” and let me tell you this much: I didn’t pick this name randomly (it also translates to “place of evil spirits”, which – on the other hand – is definitely not a reference to the client).
Christophe and I had a kickoff meeting for Clayoquot. The name derives from a first nation band and means “changing”, which also fits perfectly. It’s a strategic project where our job is to bring a product vision to life.
Christophe also spent a day off-site with the Wapato team, while I took care of some accounting stuff.
Michael was working hard on this aviation skills. Every now and then the humming sound of a remote controlled helicopter could be heard through the doors of his room.
The vibes are good. So good, I almost forgot that we lost a couple of thousand Euro this week. But that’s a story I can’t talk about right now.
December 24th to 30th
We hadn’t any project work scheduled for the last week of the year, but we weren’t completely idle. Apart from testing and ordering new office chairs (note from the editor’s back: Thanks!), we had a meeting where we reviewed the passing year and made plans for the new one.
In preparation for this meeting, we took a closer look at our financial results. Here is some data we’d like to share.
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December 17th to 23rd
This week we had something to celebrate. Not just a good year and a new contract we won, but also one of the too rare occasions where all of us are together in one room.
Here are some blurry, grainy, crappy pics of our year-end party.
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December 10th to 16th
This week in food. Designed and engineered at the precious culinary laboratories.
Monday: Traditional Swabian "Spätzle" with fried onions and grated cheese
December 3rd to 9th
The holidays are just around the corner, so we are trying to finish some (sub-)projects before we call it a year. Christophe mainly worked on Wapato, David familiarized himself with re:publica and I did some last changes for Kootenay. We also talked a lot to old and new clients about projects in 2012. Seems like the new year will start even busier than the this one ends.
Because I didn’t have that much project work to do, I tried to get ahead of some operational matters. One thing we really suck at is taking care of our cash flow. It always works out somehow, but I wouldn’t say we’ve got it under control. So I took some time to test out a few software products for cash flow projections. I ended using Pulse (happy so far, but if you got any other suggestions, please share in the comments). I added all our financial data, unpaid invoices, regular expenses etc. and I have to admit, I got a thrill at looking at the numbers. It felt pretty satisfying to actually see (not just guessing) how much money we can expect to have in February. I even had some fun playing with the numbers and checking out different scenarios: what happens if clients X pays 3 weeks later, how does it effect our cash flow if we buy new monitors and chairs in January…
Actually, I’m a bit embarrassed to talk about this. Someone running a business should have an exact idea about his/her finances. But I also know that a lot of designers have similar problems. Being a good designer doesn’t make you a good business man.
On the first glance it seems obvious: designers are visual people, they don’t think in numbers. That’s a cliché of course, one that is probably cultivated more by designers than non-designers. It’s often used as an excuse to suck at business. As if you would loose credibility among your peers if you know a few things about finances.
For a long time I had an aversion for all things economic as well. All that mattered was producing great work and becoming a better designer. All the focus was on design itself.
This focus hasn’t changed. But we are now at a point where we have to improve and develop other aspects of the studio to raise the bar. Like building a great team, nurturing a culture, managing bigger projects, making better sales – and keeping a sound financial foundation.
I’m getting more and more interested in precious as a company than just our creative output. Actually I started to think of precious as our biggest and most ambitious design project. And with that in mind, looking at a projection of cash reserves can a beautiful thing, even if it’s just a table with numbers.
