How to utilise your team to help your studio grow with James Kape

It’s not enough to just do the work, you have to document and promote it properly. Whether it’s on your website or during a meeting, you need to have a strong story behind what you present. Spend some money getting good photos or renders of the work. And then get that story out there, through social media, a newsletter or the creative industry press.

But bear in mind you’ll likely win the same type of work as whatever you promote, so be mindful of the work that you want to attract. In the past, we’ve promoted projects that were outside of our speciality. This led to new business opportunities that weren’t quite the right fit. You should focus on things that you want to do even if it means you have a smaller portfolio, otherwise you will end up doing what you don't necessarily want to do. It’s better to be curated.

The second way to win work is through referrals, where you are recommended by someone you worked with in a previous role. This is how we started working with St John at Hackney Church. In 2018, the organisation received a grant to complete a multi-million pound restoration supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. After being recommended by a former colleague from Wolf Olins, we ended up working with the church to create its new visual identity.

The project was more drawn out than usual, as the restoration took over two years. When it comes to long projects like this, the main challenge is in account management. The work itself happened in quick bursts, but the account management needs were constant – especially as we had to adapt and refresh our strategy to make sure the work remained relevant. Having a strong relationship with your client on long-running projects like this can help take the pressure off.

Luckily, we had enough time to expand and plan for work as it came up with St John at Hackney Church. But this is not always the case. We’ve behaved a bit like an accordion over the years, expanding and contracting. We quickly dropped from a team of six to three in 2019, after my co-founder Briton Smith left, followed by two of our designers who went on to set up their own thing.

We responded by bringing freelancers in when we needed them. It worked really well for a while. At one point, we had an intern in China, a UX designer in Sydney and a graphic designer in Brazil. But by the end of 2020, it became too hard to manage.

We were having to turn down opportunities because we didn't have the capacity to take them on. I didn't know what to do. So I started reaching out to other founders and people I admired to ask for advice, both within and outside of the creative industry. These conversations led me to hiring a business coach. They helped me form a plan and figure out the steps I needed to take to make it happen.

The advice I’d give is to remember that you’re working with great people, and that it’s okay to have different approaches to solving problems. In fact, it’s a really good thing! You have to remind yourself that sometimes other people will have better ways of doing things than you.

It also helps to accept that things will go wrong. At some point there’s going to be a wobble, whether it’s with the client or over a piece of work. You just need to have a chat about it and figure out a way to move forward.

Having a bigger team can affect the type of work you're able to take on, but we don't want it to. As much as possible, we're trying to continue working on cultural projects where the budgets might not be as big. This can be tricky, because as your team grows so do your overheads.

We’re trying to find the right balance, to continue growing the business while finding time for self-initiated projects and giving back to the community. So six years into the business, it’s still vital to remember that any brand can make a difference, whether it’s an up and coming tech company, an eclectic music venue – or even a 200 year old church.