Our weblog
Updates and articles around our design studio, work, ideas and things we like.
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.
November 26th to December 2nd
This week was special. No longer it is just Michael, Christophe and me regularly populating the office – David began his internship. +1 Hooray!
There wasn’t time to acclimatize for him, because we had an internal hackday scheduled on Monday. To prepare for a workshop with a new client, we all locked ourselves in our project room and developed some interaction sketches. After a joint breakfast, we did a little brainstorming and scribbled some ideas on paper. Before the pizzas arrived, David, Christophe and I had already churned out rough layouts, while Michael did his usual magic tricks. In the evening we could try various user flows on our iPads and check out how different approaches feel like. It was fun and very productive. We should do it more often.
The rest of the week: Christophe took care of some re:publica stuff and resumed work on Wapato, Philipp designed for Osoyoos, Michael coded for Listgeeks and his new pet project, Milan build some nice and tidy HTML/CSS/JS for Kootenay and I worked on it as well, while David proofed that we picked the right one as our first intern.
We’ve been interviewed by weave magazine
Our design process illustration is featured in the current issue of weave magazine, along with a small interview about the same topic. Other companies portrayed: Mutabor, UID, WHITEvoid and a small firm called Google. Get a copy here.
November 19th to 25th
Good School / Station Berlin
The little gram on the top right was captured on Wednesday, when we first visited the location where next year’s re:publica will take place. The picture doesn’t show, but believe me: this place is enormous. Our walk-through started in a huge hall, which was, as it turned out, one of the smaller ones. With every room we entered it got bigger and bigger. We were flabbergasted. It’ll be a challenge to create a comfortable experience for the conference attendees, but we are psyched to be part of the team.
Already very cozy: The rooms at the Good School (photo on the left), where we held a one-day workshop on design for iPads/tablets with a team from an advertising agency.
Apart from these out-of-office engagements we sat busily in front of our computers. Christophe preparped the website launch for re:publica 12. Philipp worked on various aspects of Comox and I was churning out infographics for Kootenay, a web app for a big publishing house.
We are trying to finalize some current projects as fast as possible, because there are a few interesting opportunities on the horizon. Onwards!
November 12th to 18th
This was the first week since quite some time without traveling (at least for me – Christophe and Michael went to Berlin for a day to meet clients). Although there was lots of work to do, it felt much better than the weeks before. I pretty much enjoyed not having to rush to the train station, killing time at the airport or making travel plans. I just went to the office and got some shit done.
Not enough though. At least that what it feels like. We are still playing catch-up with some of the things we’d like to do and just barely keep up with our client work these days.
It would be easy to blame the typical year-end frenzy (which is even more crazier this year), but that would not solve the problem. Especially if the demand keeps up in 2012, which we strive for. So these days I think a lot about organizing and planning, but even more so about focussing. What projects make sense for us, which ones are just slowing us down? Of course you end up with something like “What do we want precious to be?” and since the design studio is not an end in itself, you finally reach the universal question: “What do I want from my life?”.
Ok, that is taking us a bit too far for this weeknote. Rewind.
Here’s an article I came across that resonated with my current thoughts: Twitter/Square founder Jack Dorsey talks about “theming his days” and “tuning out the rest”.
Although still far from perfect, I myself got much better at compartmentalizing my time. It helps me a lot to get more done in less time with a sane mind. The question that’s challenging me right now is: How can these principles be adopted for an organization? How to sync everybody? It’s tricky, even in such a small team as ours.
October 29th to November 11th
Again a two-in-one weeknote. These days are so busy that we have to nix some things. A weeknote here and there is an easy sacrifice. The decision to cancel our appearance at the Brand Perfect Tour in London, however, was way more difficult. [Addendum from Christophe: we also wanted to attend MobXCon in Berlin really badly, but couldn't make it – the program was amazing and it surely was a great opportunity to meet a lot of the mobile/multiscreen players; the the feedback on Twitter sounds amazing! And speaking of cancelling: I was really lucky and honored to be awarded a scholarship for MEX, taking place in London in two weeks but had to call it off as well due to our current schedules.]
Christophe and I have been out of the office quite often in the last two weeks. This becomes evident by an increased numbers of issues of the local yellow press paper MoPo on our kitchen table. Every time Michael is alone in the office, he buys the paper to keep himself entertained during lunch break. Which makes me wonder if our chats at the kitchen table are that dull. Wouldn’t an adequate surrogate for our stimulating conversations rather be Lettre or Du?
We’ve been a lot with clients in Berlin and Hamburg and also made some new acquaintances. In Munich, we met the studio directors of a design firm to talk about possible collaborations. Although this company is pretty big and acknowledged, we were surprised how open and unpretentious they are (too often we experienced the opposite with advertising or digital agencies). We’ve had a good talk about design processes and philosophies and returned to Hamburg happy.
When in the office, we mainly worked on Kootenay. After a three months break we also resumed project Comox, which seems to keep us busy for the weeks to come. Philipp came to Hamburg to present the first results of our work for Osoyoos to the client.
Back to work.
