agency benchmark

The number of companies who come to us after getting the “B Team” from a big agency is wild.

I only hire senior-level, A-team designers.

Balancing some measure of "quality" with speed is a unique circus trick and Primary Studio is a kind of Cirque du Soleil in snack form. It’s smart. It works in part because the company understands that trust has to be insanely high for a two-week experience to succeed. The same model stretched to five weeks assumes a level of scrutiny that invites... See more

An interface is a commodity. A logo is a commodity. A crafted sentence is a commodity. But the reasoned, intellectual, somatic, and expressive strategy that directs these design artifacts is not.

New tools allow brands to be scaled by smaller teams, enabling new models.

Brand built well gives compounding market presence.

while it's easy to build sites and interfaces, it's not easy to do so beyond just the well trod patterns and paths that most take.

Great strategy, aligned with thoughtful and well placed content/copy that specifically addresses the unique requirements of the customer painpoints is difficult work, and very few are excellent at it. This shares some... See more

Nick is focused on identity, not brand. Brand is much much more complex and so much harder to maintain. That said, I do think where what you said has merit, is that identity is a bit harder to pull off than interface. It requires some POV, some strong graphic design skill, and can't easily be pulled off beyond logo shapes by AI.

Best for us: Easy to sell. Quick projects.

Tough for us: can be hard to hit profitability/margin goals. These sprints really do require skilled brand designers/team.

Best for them: Easy to buy. Fast. Great result.

Tough for them: Expect low price and fast result for everything.