Written by
Ana Reis
Staying small is a choice we remake every January. Here is the arithmetic behind it, and what we turn down to keep it.
Each January we sit down with last year’s calendar and ask whether six people could have done more. The answer is always yes, and each year we decide not to.
The arithmetic
An identity takes six to eight weeks and a website four to ten. With two senior people on every project and time left for the work to be reconsidered, that comes to twelve a year. Thirteen is possible. Thirteen is also where a designer starts splitting days between two clients, and where the person you met on the first call stops being the person who draws your wordmark.
What we turn down
Rush jobs, pitch work, and anything where the brief is a deadline and nothing else. We also turn down good projects when the calendar is full, which is the part that still stings.
Small is not a virtue in itself. It is the only way we have found to keep the work in the hands of the people who are best at it.