I’m a loner. Ask me to teach a course on the Loner Design Process and I’m your man. Armin Vit .

Ideology is a drug. We should not resort to drugs. Imposing an ideology will foster rebellion. Design collaboration is simply one more tool, one more method, one more asset in developing good work. Steven Heller.

… we are not islands. Design is, by virtue of the new technologies, a cross-disciplinary (or as some say, trans-disciplinary) activity. Graphic design is not just making type and image compositions; two, three, and more dimensions are part of the graphic design landscape. The fact is, the distinction between graphic and other design disciplines is gradually fading away. Steven Heller.

Each of us have our strengths, but as a group, we’ve become pretty balanced in terms of jumping in and around our production line. We’re able to pick up where others left off as they move on to other notes on the list or a different ongoing project. It’s pretty organic. We’ll collectively think of ideas, and as a group, hone in on the few that we want to explore further. We continue the process until we’ve all landed on a cohesive idea and technique that we’re digging.

A script or outline is written, storyboards are made, style boards are constructed, sets are built, wardrobe is chosen, live action is shot, keying and rotoscope work is applied, edits begin, compositing and VFX commences, animation is created, compositing is composited, and final coloring is finished. With the eight of us and our shared skill sets, we can do most all of this in-house.

A lot of the time, we’re the background talent in all of our internal work. We’re cheap and we’re usually available.

Timmy Fisher.

Design is such an interesting thing, with so many components and different countervailing forces that shape something. It is really interesting to write about that process. In writing about design, I’m also writing about myself as a practitioner. I’ve tried to write about all of the aspects of my design process over the years, and I think that I have a lot more to touch on. But I admire people like Rudy VanderLans, Richard Hollis, or Jan Tschichold who’ve all spent the time to write about their practices as designers. Rob Giampietro.

By far the most fruitful strategy to stay productive I know of is to go on sabbatical every seven years, to spend a year working on things that there never seems to be enough time for during the regular client oriented years. Stefan Sagmeister .

Technology sure has changed the way typefaces are produced nowadays. You don’t have to be a big company anymore to produce high quality fonts. But with this benefit comes the same requirement, that it is not about the limitation or ability of the software; it’s still about a very unique craftsmanship that someone has to study and perfect over a long time. Anna Fahrmaier.

Since our whole culture and history is built on the linear logic of the alphanumeric code, text and typography are essential. I’m still fascinated by the possibility to describe the world with just 26 characters and 10 figures. To me it seems be almost magic that man can define the shape and visual representation of any content by designing a typeface. Marc Kappeler.

The only disadvantage of the small studio is that most very, very large branding projects tend to go to very large international firms. From my point of view, this is entirely misbegotten. If you look at the successful brands worldwide, almost all of the successful identities have been designed by single entities, from Nike to Apple to IBM . It’s partly because they come from a time when Paul Rand or Saul Bass designed them.

I’m very, very well aware that branding is much more than logo design. At the same time, what international consultancies do now is primarily centered on consulting and not design, though they pretend otherwise. These consultancies would much rather be out of the design business. However, when you sit down with the owners or with the founders of these consultancies at a bar after a con- ference, it’s apparent what they do. And everything else that they claim they are doing is certainly not at the core of what they are doing. If you look at a brand holistically, the consultancies do not do what is probably the most important thing that a brand really does.

Stefan Sagmeister.

Before I opened the studio, I worked for many companies, large and small. I feel like I’ve gotten my dose of the large corporate world, of the midsized corporate world, and of the smallish corporate world. And I have worked in studios that were ten, 20, 30 people. And I feel that when I look at the work emerging from any of these entities, the really good work was most often done by three people. When 20 people were involved, it mostly sucked. So for me, it never seems that size works in favor of the client.

From my own perspective, a small studio has numerous advantages. You have low overhead, so you can be financially independent. You are also able to remain a designer, something that many of my friends have lost as their businesses grew to 10 or 20 people. I like doing the little bit of manage- ment that my small company needs, but I don’t want to do it full-time. I don’t want to become a full-time design manager.

Stefan Sagmeister.