Four baths
Every project here goes through the same four stages, in the same order, for the same reason a print does. Skip one and it looks fine for a while.
Develop
We start by not designing anything. We read the old brochures, sit in on sales calls and ask the person who’s been there longest what the company got wrong. By the end of the bath there’s an image on the paper, faint but there. You can tell what it is. You can’t sell it yet.
Stop
A stop bath does one thing: it ends the development, immediately, so nothing else changes. Ours is a single meeting with ten directions on the wall. We take nine down, with you in the room. It’s the shortest bath and the one people remember.
Fix
This is where the work gets made. Type gets drawn, the site gets built, the film gets shot and cut. Fixer makes an image permanent, so we check it before it goes in. After this we stop changing things and start finishing them.
Wash
Skip the wash and a print looks fine for a year, then stains. So we take out what’s left over: the extra page, the second tagline, the animation nobody asked for. Launch day comes after that. We’ve moved launch dates four times in six years and nobody has asked us to move one back.
Questions we get
How long does a project take?
Close
Between four and nine months for most of them. If you need it sooner, we're probably not the right studio, and we can suggest someone who is.
Why only six clients a year?
Open
Do you really have a darkroom?
Open
Can we see work in progress?
Open
What if we don't like what you show us?
Open