Taste, Client Feedback and the 50/50 Rule for Design Studios

Blaze here for Week 6,

Late with this one, so I’m inputting some more studio POV and experience in today

How taste is built

Taste is now a played-out/cringe word, but it’s really important to stand out in the age of AI. You can get it from living in subcultures (which AI can’t do)

Here's an example of my life. I grew up skateboarding and chronically online in gaming communities. From those experiences I was surrounded by a world of brands and unique personas. Those are things that have had a major influence on me later in life. While I’m much deeper into new subcultures as a 26-year-old, I’m getting the same overall influence by these new hobbies

From participation you learn what’s cool and what’s not. I was loyal to brands like Alien Workshop, Girl, Halo 3, Minecraft because whatever brand foundations they used appealed to a demographic I saw myself fitting into

It doesn’t really matter if something is majorly popular because it will be nostalgic in 10 years after dozens of more popular things get created. We see so many references to The Matrix lately in fashion, which was massive in 1999. It's always been cool to like things that were cool a long time ago

As I’ve become older, I’ve learned that the nuances of environments, photography compositions, font choices, color combinations, etc. are all choices you can make from the direct influence of living life.

Feedback process

I’ve just recently run into a flaw in my current flow. When you give the client an ability to provide feedback into multiple channels, that can be time-consuming and convoluted on your end to break it all down. Let me explain

You send a design concept. It’s ready for feedback. The client responds through Figma comments, Figma design boards, and Slack messages. They’re also sending text walls of information in all of these. You realize one source of feedback is conflicting with another. You also have no idea what comment came first

This just happened in a recent project with Shovel. It’s our mistake for not establishing how to give proper feedback in the onboarding call. Ideally we get concise/actionable notes through one channel. It’s much more efficient for both ends to work this way

Here you can see the updated Onboarding Presentation Shovel now uses. This also covers the intro to our design process if you’re curious

50/50 Rule

Getting new work and doing the work is the fine balance you perform as a freelancer/small studio. Early on James Barnard taught me the 50/50 rule

50% of your time goes into getting leads (this could be ads, networking, etc. whatever works best for you)

Over the last 2 years I’ve developed a simple flow that helps me get organic content through the door fast

1. Write down ideas throughout the day as soon as they come to mind. Document these in Notion or iPhone reminders
2. Write scripts at night before bed. Pencil and paper. Use your iPhone as needed when breaking down digital work
3. Finalize that script in Notion during the AM. For me this should be the first task I complete for the day
4. Storyboard and gather assets in Figma and Google Drive. Handoff to the editor
5. Repeat the process
6. Review the content from the editor in the AM and post

Then 50% of your time goes into production work

I like to prioritize work by deadlines. You can also prioritize it by what’s going to put numbers in your bank account faster. Sometimes the fulfilling work doesn’t need priority

For example. My Shovel rebrand is fun for me. I am my own client, I know what I like. Closing out a project for a paying client will always have a higher impact on my revenue. This is why studios and agencies often delay or delegate their own redesigns

Design to development with AI in a week

Speaking of the Shovel rebrand, it’s almost complete. The current site is good, but not 'best-in-class.' This year we’re at a level of work quality that starts to compete with the studios that inspired me

I spent some time scoping with 3 developers and ended up choosing none of them. It was much more cost-efficient to do this on my own time with $60 worth of Windsurf credits

Some developers don’t rely on AI enough which makes their workflow too slow. Some developers rely on AI too much, to the point where casual conversation in DM’s is generated by an LLM. Again, there is a fine balancing act here, but what works for Shovel the best right now is a full-stack creative. Someone who knows Creative Direction, Brand Design, UX/UI, and Frontend Development

These people exist (I am one of them). I just hired my friend David for a new project we’re kicking off next week for a brand with 100 years of history

I’ve also been able to gather enough insights to majorly affect my customer-journeys. There are many different personas that watch my content I need to account for

These insights to optimize a creator-led design studio will be posted on my IG. Be sure to follow along

This is a headless website powered by NextJS, Sanity, and Shopify coming this month

WIP link here

New apartment

Literally living the dream of my 18-year-old self. Looking back, every correct & incorrect choice I made led me to this life today. We have a new downtown apartment in Chicago. In a few weeks we will have a Golden Retriever puppy to live with us. His name is Torrent! (yeah, from Elden Ring)

Cool people I met through content this week

• Chicago Graphic Design Club - The founder Christian had me on his podcast right when I moved to Chicago. This club he created is extremely helpful to young designers trying to pave their own path
• Span - The club above hosted an event here. That client feedback entry above was suggested by the design founder Nick
• Vår - Loosely met in DMs, but will formally meet in person at Cannes Lions later this month. Her content is a great example of taste + simple formats that work. This is literally an account that was just created this year

Take care

Feel free to reply to this email with any recommendations you may find valuable here.

Talk next week! - Blaze