In Wan Chai, Hong Kong, there’s a bakery called Bakehouse by Grégoire Michaud that serves the most mouthwatering sourdough egg tarts, but while its pastries are top tier, one can’t help but turn their eyes to the bright blue abstract design on the bakery’s takeaway bags and coffee cups as well.
You’re looking at the work of award-winning creative studio Kith&Kin.
Kith&Kin prides itself in creating impactful design for its clients—and the work certainly speaks for itself—but it’s not always easy to give clients what they want. Founder Rocky Yip, however, has found a strategy that works.
“When you start out in branding, and stuff like this, or any kind of design, you tend to do what the client claims they want,” he says. “They come to you saying, “Hey, we want a poster or we want a logo or we want a flyer or a website—that’s how it usually works—but you tend to not really ask the client, “Why do you really want this?”
Several years ago, Rocky and his team began to ask themselves that very question. “We caught ourselves doing a lot of stuff, and we didn’t know why we were doing it.”
It was an important turning point from which they adopted a new process. Before they start designing for clients, they hold a workshop that spans three to four days. During that period, they go through a couple of exercises to discover exactly what the business actually needs.
“It’s a very collaborative process, and through this discovery workshop, we get to, one, on our end, learn about the business, but, two, for our clients’ end, they get to rediscover their business as well,” he adds.
The results are often not what their clients expect. “A lot of times, when people start businesses, they have an image in mind, a very clear pathway, they come up with scenarios, and they come up with what they think their clientele is, and what they think their message is, but after the workshops, they realized that there are some points that they are off, so we guide them into kind of discovering kind of their true market, and their true messaging.”
PHOTO: Pixabay
