Year-end notes, 2021

The studio is closing for two weeks tomorrow. A short list of things that worked, things that did not, and a few things to carry into next year.

Things that worked.

Bringing a copywriter onto the larger projects from the start, not the end. Three projects this year ran on this model. All three shipped sooner, with stronger copy, than the projects that did not.

The weekly written check-in. Still in place. Still saving meeting time. Still the single best management tool I have introduced in the last two years.

Saying no to four projects that, on previous-year reflexes, the studio would have said yes to. The projects we said yes to instead were better fits. The income did not drop.

Things that did not.

The dark-mode initiative for one client, which was over-designed for an audience that mostly never switched modes, and which I should have talked them out of in week one.

The “small printed thing for every client” practice slipped during the busy summer. I will admit this so I am held to it next year. The cards were never the bottleneck. I just stopped printing them.

The studio’s own website. Twelve months without a meaningful update. The cobbler-with-no-shoes problem is real and I have run out of excuses.

Things to carry into 2022.

Smaller list of clients. Larger amount of time per client. The studios that I most respect have always operated this way. I have been gradually moving toward it for two years and I want to commit to it.

A monthly note here, regardless of whether there is something pressing to write about. The discipline of writing matters more than the content of any individual post.

A two-day off-site, in March, with a copywriter, a strategist, and me, to redesign the studio’s own brand and website. I have written this down so it actually happens this time. Loosely modelled on the Win Without Pitching format, with the design pass borrowing from how Bibliothèque and Studio Dumbar handle their own positioning.

The earlier post on bringing copywriters in early is here, with the writers I have worked with most happily.

See you in January.