transcript Oli Split

What is the aim

 Seeing as I am an international student and midst Brexit, I’m not sure what I will be able to do in terms of working in the UK. This report is therefore focused on comparing the answers to the same set of questions from different studios around the world to see how they approach design and how they find the environment.

Their answers

Split studios

How is the creative environment in Leeds?

I think when you compare it to cities this size, certainly, in the North, I think it is really strong. I think it reflects the trend for cultural and creative institutions and organizations and businesses to gravitate towards bigger city centers, perhaps at the expense of small towns and cities around them.

That's not to say there's not great stuff going on in all the smaller towns. I think we've seen Leeds grow and so creative agency we've run a project called the Leeds Creative Family Tree. The Leeds Creative Family Tree is an ongoing not-for-profit project designed to showcase the huge range of creative individuals and organisations in our city and to help us all find other like-minded creatives and collaborate more locally.

The project was started in 2012, and just started in our little area of Corey Hill. We've seen the number of independent start-up grow and we've seen then the size of these independent start-ups we worked with early on grow too.

How would you describe the style of design in the studio?

I think you can kind of approach things in two ways. There are studios who have quite strong house styles and aesthetics and that's what they do and that's what people go to them for. We take a different approach in that I believe we are a fifty percent say. I think our work should reflect this, and specific nature of that brief, their audience, their problems, challenges that they need to overcome, all of that. We are very much led by that. We've got certain beliefs in terms of how we do things, but it's much more for us about a push for originally as much as we possibly can and a push for quality as much as we can. And then a push to answering the needs of the clients brief.

When we do our own thing, especially when we do things like album covers, we act slightly more as artists rather than just designers. I think there's a key distinction there in terms of the mindset of approach. I've never considered myself an artist.

Sometimes people will try and complement our work by saying, “Oh, you're more than a designer” or “You are not just a designer “. I have a real problem with that because I think that the intention is to say something nice, but what they're doing now is placing art on a higher plane than design, perhaps because design gives you so much commercially. But I think it is really powerful stuff. Design can be used on a level with art, but I think it's very different mindsets, different thinking processes, different sort of brain space.

When we work on our own stuff, be the album covers or other creative projects like These Northern Types, which is a book exploring northern identity through type. We do have quite a strong conceptual brand, quite a strong typographic. Now obviously we've got the huge printing press. That has informed our practice, but I wouldn't say we work in an overarching style.

How does the design process look like?

I think there's some set structure to how we approach a project, but it is very much tailored to the brief. Some briefs are much bigger than others. Some allow for a few days of research and play and that's great. It also depends on how much the client is wanting to be involved with. For example, certain album covers, we're given the music and a general direction in terms of the artist approach, and it's a blank slate they want us to come up with something from scratch. And then how we approach that will depend on the budget. There are artists and labels that already have imagery and then work with type and from. Others we might do original shoots, or a type-based concept, or commission an artist to collaborate with us. It all really depends on each individual brief.  

How does the studio operate?

We do have set roles in the studio, we're tiny. So, we also all wear a lot of hats. I mean right now there's only two of us in the studio. Whereas in a bigger agency, you've got 20 people and you've got client handlers and you've got people who just do finance. We're much more blended in that and from the boys to the managing directors, you know, it's much more fluid than that.

I know designers who work in bigger studios rarely have to answer emails because there are people in charge of that. But I think whilst this can make things cleaner in some ways it can also get in the way, sometimes the best creative results come from working directly with the client. You can only do jobs at a certain size working like that. We can therefore only do jobs of a certain size in the studio, although I think for the size are, we probably punch above our capacity sometimes, but it’s a way I really enjoy working.

There are probably ways that we could work that might be slightly more efficient, I set up Split from university I have never worked in another studio.

That means I never do anything how we “should” I try and find the answers that are right for our clients and us.

It’s actually nice to have some self-awareness about that and trying to learn what we're actually doing, reflecting on that sometimes can be quite useful. I'm always asking why. Always picking away at whether we do it like this or that; is this the right thing to do or why not do this more?

How do most clients find you?

Most of our clients find us through word of mouth. We occasionally get people who find us, via our website or social. Some of it's through articles written about These Northern Types. But typically, we've grown it all from word of mouth. The portfolio then backs that up. So people will hear that hopefully, they're good to work with and easy to work with… And we do things like reply to emails promptly.

 Do you ever feel weird about promoting your own work?

I've hidden behind the name Split for 12 years. Not many months ago, we actually put it out there on the internet that Split is the studio, it’s my studio. Even though all our clients, they know that.

 But its terrifying to put yourself out there. When I first started, I trained as a musician as well. And I had to make this choice between being a musician. Along with many other things, I found it a bit easier promoting Split studios whereas as a musician it was me.

There is more to Split than me now, there have been many people contributing to what Split is today. I would never say that Split is me, but I am aware that when it comes to promoting it, I feel much more comfortable it not being my name.

When we promote work, I have a golden rule: We can’t say it's good, we can't decide that. We can have confidence in the work, and we can put it up for people to see, but we can't tell anyone its good. And mean we will probably hate it in six months anyway!

What would the ultimate project?

Some ideas with the big press here. I have been lucky and done a couple of my ultimate projects. We got to do the 20th-anniversary box set for my favourite record level in the world. I think I will always look at that as something that I never dreamed of being able to do and I couldn't even pick it out, like something I thought we could have done. Some people say don't meet your heroes, but those projects where you work with someone you look up to and come away with more respect for them at the end of it, rather than fewer leads to take more inspiration from them than before.

That's kind of the ultimate thing for me and right now is to continue to produce prints on the letterpress but is a very slow process and very expensive.

 What does success mean to you?

Not going bankrupt and that we can do the work we want to do and care about. I always want to be judged on the quality of our creative work. Not on, turnover or anything like that. I’d like for our work next year is to be better and different from last year and to continue evolving, rather than having a fixed goal. I don’t think that is helpful in order to evolve.

There is this saying about enjoying being on the side of the mountain rather than just trying to get to the top. I think success probably means that I'm still really excited about doing some of the work we do in 20, 30 years’ time. And my job is completely different in 20, 30 years’ time as it is totally different from what it was five years ago. As long as I'm still excited about it, everything else follows. Trying to keep ourselves in a position where we can continue to make that sustainable, that would be a success.

I feel like the answers are good but I don't have anything to compare it to so I'm not sure if I've managed to get what I was aiming to get out of this project. i am a bit more informed about how split works but i dont have much else.