Hi!

• We design in illustrator mainly and will on occasion get into Photoshop. We just did our first project in Sketch which has been a learning curve but we get it. Our project managers use a combination of Trello, Goes to Work, Google Drive & Docs and Slack.
• We've been offering photography for a couple years now. We see it as a way to approach being fully responsible for a brand. So often we were creating identities and websites that we loved and the photography wasn't quite there. Now we can help with that too.
• We are loving Pretend Store. Our process is completely organic at this point. We would love to see it grow and become more independent from Fuzzco. Right now we are working on figuring out how to make it financially sustainable without limiting ourselves too much creatively.
• I can't get over Smoothie the cat - insanely cute. I'm obsessed with cats.

Hi Niamh!

Awesome! I'd recommend only showing the work that you are really proud of, even if it's just a few things. You can always bolster your portfolio with personal projects. I'd also love to see what you are interested in outside of design. What do you care about? What are you obsessed with? Who do you look up to? What do you hope to get out of the internship? How hungry are you? Real-world experience is helpful but so is life experience.

Hi Daniel!

Thanks so much.

Every studio strikes this balance differently, and we’ve settled on something that has worked well for us.

Designers want to work with us so they can work on a broad range of really interesting projects for all kinds of clients. We work with everyone from Google to the sandwich shop around the corner, and everything in between. Many designers working at other studios with less diverse ranges of clients and projects freelance not just to make money but to add this type of diversity of work to their experience.

This is an environment where our designers get their hands on a ton of projects and in some indirect ways this policy enables us to support working with smaller clients and keeps the work more interesting. As a result everyone here benefits from the variety. We also compensate our designers well, give out performance bonuses and referral compensation, have a strong parental leave policy, and recently initiated a profit sharing plan for everyone in the company.

The approach has its pros and cons like any other, but we’ve found that the overall balance has worked well.

Andrew,

This is really hard! We've run into the same issues. We've approached this problem in different ways - we've had clients put us on retainer for ongoing work, we've developed detailed brand guides and training manuals in the hopes that they are followed, we've been on call to review things that a client does independently and we've also been completely hands off. All of these solutions have had different results and very much depend on who the client is.

I think the answer is that it's different for every project but there are some things that you can do to help. Brand guides and training manuals help. Periodic checkins help (and clients seem to love them). If you are able to structure an ongoing relationship with a client that is probably the best as far as keeping up the integrity of the brand/website but not every client can afford this. There are also choices you can make during the design/dev that can make it easier/harder for a client to maintain the work. For example, if you create an identity system with too many moving parts it may be really confusing to the client. What it all comes down to is communication. A client should have a clearly defined program and understand the extensions and the boundaries - and when to contact you when they need something. A client should also know that their brand and site are alive and very much like a new car - when you drive it off the lot, anything can happen. The expectation should be set that repairs will be needed at some point in order to keep the car/brand/site in top form. Sorry for the cheesy analogy.

Hi Kyle!

Thanks!

The Fuzzco-method is based on taking things personally, working really really hard and letting intuition help guide the work.

• Before the project even starts we ask the question - do we think we can do great work for this client? I really think that is the most important step.
• We feel personally invested in the projects we take on. We put an incredible amount to work into our projects. We are very efficient and decisive.
• We value our instincts immensely and we make it a point not to overthink things.

Hi Kimberly,

I'd encourage you to go work at a small studio. You'll get to wear more hats than you would at a big place and get more exposure to the nitty gritty parts of the job. Make it a priority to become great friends with your project manager (if you have one). The better your relationship, the healthier the communication the more fulfilled you'll be and the better the work will be.

Consistency in the work is very important to see in a portfolio. I look for a strong design aesthetic that aligns with ours and I love seeing a lot of identity work.

There have been so many challenging projects for so many different reasons. As we've gotten more experience things have tended to become less challenging / more expected, which is nice. Gosh... my favorite project... so hard. Right now we're working on a bunch of fun things - we're working with Montessorium on some really fun projects , we're also working on a suite of identities for a hotel in Charleston which is really exciting.

Great question. When we started we took on anything and everything. I would suggest anyone else starting out to do the same thing. You learn so much in the process. Every project - no matter how mundane - is an opportunity to do something great.

You aren't going to want to share all of the work you do at first because some of it will not be the type of work you wish you were doing. You want to put the things in your portfolio that you want to do more of.

Hi! Thanks!

• So many challenges. Figuring out how to manage a team has been the hardest and maybe the most rewarding.
• Successful? I think because we have very high standards and we work extremely hard.

Hi Jonathan!

:) <3

• We were constantly looking for opportunities to do work. We took on anything and everything. We worked for very little and often for free and we took very good care of our clients.
• My friends and family, the architecture, the heat and the small size of the city.
• I love Agnes Martin, Sol LeWitt, Francis Bacon - my answer might be different tomorrow.

Hi Art,

We grew pretty organically. We always had more work than we needed which helped. We were never sure it was the right time to grow, we just did what felt right according to what we thought we needed, and after lots and lots of conversations. It was incredibly stressful.

Man, we've gotten so many things wrong. We've hired the wrong people, charged too little for work, order way too many products for Pretend Store, signed off on print jobs with errors, adopted a neighborhood cat, etc.

Hi Rachel,

Thank you!

I will say that it was really hard during the first years - and by that I mean it's still really hard. I don't think I could have done it alone at all. Josh and I have an incredible relationship and we really depend on each other to make it happen.

The biggest challenge was finding work and then how to convince people that they should pay us to do it. We struggled so much with how to bill for our work. We had to figure everything out - rates, contracts, scope of work, scheduling, negotiating, sticking up for the work, etc. We had other jobs for the first two years so it was also balancing all of that.

We didn't know anyone who did what we were doing so we tried to meet people in our industry here in Charleston. That ended up being kind of helpful - people tended to keep things pretty close to the chest so we had to make a lot of it up on our own. We iterated and iterated on our processes, for years! We're still changing how we do things. It never ends! People are the best resources. There are books out there that are good too, like these and like this although to be honest I haven't read them.

We've become more focused in the last few years - more aware and deliberate about the kinds of things we actually want to be doing which feels great.

One day I want Fuzzco to be the kind of company that people come to for creative experiences. We'll still do branding and web and content but they will be more of the means to an end. I want to help create the business, the product, the bigger picture. That's where the really interesting opportunities are. That would be fun.