Design studio or spaceship?

I finished a short-term contract with a prestigious design company the other day. In truth it was the best place I have worked at, in a freelance career only several months old. The floor to ceiling white decor, equally at home in meditation centre or spaceship, was an added bonus, but as in every workplace, the environment is made more by the people than the furnishings, and in this case they were relaxed and friendly, quite obviously capable.

For the first time in my career I am told, if you have to choose between doing something fast and doing it to the highest standard, choose the latter. Which is music to my casuistic ears! A bane of the contemporary design industry is that with computerisation, a job that once took a week is now expected in a day. Ask anyone who has been around more than twenty years and they will tell you this. But this company is a strategy firm, not just a design house, of a higher stratosphere where the thinking behind identity and marketing gets done. I am guessing their fantastic hourly rates give them a dimension of time and breathing space unknown in the lower realms.

Read more: Spaceship design