Studio Brief 2 / Taking Care of Business / Brief & Where We're Up To

The brief is to get together with a few other peers and set up a 'design business', be it a studio or shop.

The brief seems perfect for getting us to look at the nitty gritty of the business, something we have never had a chance to explore before.

I've teamed up with Alec, Sophie, Daria and Elliot and the first thing we did was look into what kind of an establishment would suit us best.

We were split between a partnership and an incorporated co-operative.

In brief: 

• A partnership would naturally lead to a hierarchy, something we as a group of design students aren't keen on.
• A co-operative gives equal power to each of its' members who all have equal say on decisions. This seems to fit our needs well and gives the 'collective' a complete democratic control.

Next we looked into costs and space for a studio. We found two different options both for around 4,300 pounds per year (very reasonable between 5 of us).

Duke Studios: 

A space in Leeds full of freelancers with desks and interesting little creative companies tucked into cardboard walls (below).

This Office:

Something less manufactured and a place that could be made our own as apposed to pre laid out.

We laughed about not being in a city centre and this is exactly the kind of situation and problem that will crop up often when starting a business as a group of five! 

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We looked at running costs and how much of a wage we could each take, settling on 16,000 a year each to begin with (with any other profits shared equally).

Above are the basic costs per year for the five of us, requiring us to earn around 350 per week per person, equalling around 10 pounds per person per hour.

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After discussing this, we met up with John who liked the idea of a collective and above all, encouraged us to find a path that separated us from other creative agencies.

He loved the idea of a collective all living and working in the same house, I agree, it would separate us from other agencies! We would have to consider the possibility of people falling out and who is liable for what if everything did fall apart.

With regards to pricing, the advice was to aim as high as possible, believing in our quality output and steadily increasing our hourly costs accordingly. It was inspiring to be told that our service is worth a high price and gave me a sense of belief in what we could achieve. 

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We're meeting again on Monday and each bringing a studio we admire / a name & concept to the table. I love this way of working, with everybody chipping in and 5 people's opinions playing off against each other - it's already producing exciting results.