Notes from the studio.
Long-form essays on how we work, what we learn, and the engagements we choose to write up publicly. Filed when there is something to file. No newsletter, no pop-up, no analytics.
A thesis before a draft
Why every piece of writing the studio ships starts with one sentence — a thesis the work is willing to defend — and how we kill drafts that cannot produce one.
The unsubscribe test
The fastest way to find out whether a brand has a real voice is to unsubscribe. The brand that survives the test wrote the unsubscribe confirmation in the same voice it wrote the homepage hero.
Reading as half the work
On why every engagement begins with a half-day of reading what the client has already published — and why that reading is never separately invoiced.
On saying no
Roughly a third of the briefs we are sent become engagements. The rest get a polite written no, and that no is part of the service.