I owned a boutique design studio for a decade. We used to take great pride tending meticulously to tiny little details of pixels, spacing and alignment. Looking back on my younger self, I feel like I was perhaps obsessing and perfecting over those details because I wasn't yet attending to the Bigger Picture in my work life.
I am chuckling to myself now as I 'launch" my website (clicked a button) with my updated brand (whipped up a logo in bed this morning).
Realistically, this was the only way it's going to get done - in that little precious sliver of time between the holiday spaciousness and the 2024 pile of work, using a basic WIX template.
You could say I am a recovering perfectionist. I'm aiming for around 85% these days.
But since we are talking in percentages, it must be said that a bed brand is 100% better than no brand. If I was going to try to create a perfect, bespoke online presence – it simply wouldn't get done.
Is my recovering perfectionism something I should be sharing with my potential clients?
Yes! Because this is an investment strategy. Instead of striving for perfection – I am amplifying a different value. I am instead asking "what is the necessary and sufficient time and level of finish to achieve the goal?".
It's not simply about utility and efficiency, it is about creating time and space for the other parts which in my mind have far more value to contribute to a creative process - things like deep contemplation, empathy and joy.
Joy? Yes to more joy in public life! We begrudgingly allowed Empathy to enter the public sphere through the sneaky back door of user/customer experience, but my personal mission is to make Joy an integral part of the value and vocab of creating change.
Ok, sure. I admit this is a funny way to launch a brand - to tell you how little time I spent on it – but hopefully I am communicating what really matters to me in the process!
I love my bed brand - it is a joyful, playful font married with an icon that represents all the potential of an unfurling koru, looking out to the distant horizon.
It encapsulates all that I love about my role I play with my clients - to stand, observe and get in relationship to the future horizon. Together we ask"what is needed in the world that is not yet here to help us arrive at a preferable future?". My experience shows me that the act of asking that question binds us in relationship to serve the unfolding/unfurling of that question. It's powerful stuff. The illustration emerges from this alchemy.
That's why I am probably unsuited to working in an agency. I never want to have to justify the use of karakia, meditation or radical "what if-ing" in my creative process of Big Picture Thinking. If I am working for Māori on a communication problem, their Ancestors and Moko-Mokopuna need to be present, and I work in service of them - so it is my duty to bring them into the process.
So without any further ado - a drumroll please, my bed brand 'Big Picture Thinking' – wholeheartedly at your service.
