2025: Where We Are & The Road Ahead

The new year has always been a point of excitement and anxiety for me. I imagine I’m probably not alone in this. On one hand you reflect on the successes and lessons learned from the previous year, and on the other hand you’re wondering how you’re going to make the upcoming year even better than the last. These times can be hopeful and motivating, as well as overwhelming; a real “upper” and “downer” situations for some folks.

While resting up after a crazy holiday season, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about 2024 and how things have been for the studio. From start to finish, 2024’s been an extremely positive year, especially with 2023 being a bit weird. The successes the studio achieved easily made 2024 the best year we’ve had in our almost 15 years of being in business.

2024 In A Nutshell…

• We won two awards this past year for our work on Lynn Music Foundation and Beyond Booze.

• We were featured in DesignRush again for Beyond Booze.

• We moved into our new office space in Downtown Providence.

• We worked on some of the most fun and ambitious projects we’ve brought on in our history.

• We met and connected with new partners and collaborators.

During this time, we’ve learned some valuable lessons throughout each project launched and connection made…

• We’ve noticed an uptick in newer clients wanting Ongoing Design Support from the jump. This has ranged from building and maintaining website design systems, ongoing UX/UI consultation, and brand design support.

• For projects that we didn’t land, the reasons were always about needing more specialized consultation or budget. Aside from that, prospects enjoyed talking with us and learning about our process.

• We saw an uptick in the need for website and brand “sprint” projects for clients that needed to move quickly while not compromising quality. This has us curious and we’ll be looking into this!

• While internal processes should always be revisited and tweaked as needed, we found areas in our processes that have needed some upkeep and restructuring.

Looking Forward

A while ago, we’d rewritten and established our studio’s new brand values. One of our studio’s values is to “Grow With Grit” which, above all other things, calls for us to embrace each challenge with perseverance and resolve. That value comes from a personal place because I started this studio as a fresh college-grad in an economy that didn’t have a place for me. Throughout those times, I only ever saw the need to dig deep and put all the chips on my skills and desire to constantly improve.

It’s been 13 years since graduating design school and even though I’ve gotten older, I’ve never lost the spark that started this amazing journey. With all of these things in mind, I’m feeling more motivated than ever about our outlook for 2025 and where we’re going to take the studio; with more amazing new opportunities for bigger projects, even better work, and stronger brands.

Goals that we’re looking forward to this year:

• Doubling studio revenue to bring on ongoing part-time contractors by late-Q2–mid-Q3.

• Starting a seasonal, semester-long internship program in the Fall. The concept for this came from one of my favorite design studios, Alphabet Arm, who always brought on interns during the Fall and Spring semesters. As someone who’s always loved teaching and mentoring, I’m extremely excited for this possibility.

• Doing more public speaking and workshops to spread the good news about the power of branding for tech and e-commerce businesses, not just early-stage (getting on stage for Squarespace Circle 2025 would be damn nice!).

So with that, I’ll close this out by continuing to thank our clients and partners, old and new, as well as our friends and family for supporting the growth of this studio. Thanks for making us (and me) work harder and improve steadily while having fun along the way. I’ve always believed that for the hard work and high stakes that may come out of these projects, no one should feel like they’re diffusing a bomb.

I hope you’ll continue to support us through this year and beyond, because trust me, you’ll want to keep an eye out. We’ve got new work coming to the site very soon, and we couldn’t be more excited to unveil them.

Until then, happy new year and let’s kill it together.