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Not every project comes to fruition, and that’s more useful than it sounds
We’ve worked on hundreds of projects at this point. Simple business cards, full brand identities, websites that took months to get right. Most of them get to live out in the world, used for years, doing their job. Some I’m genuinely proud of. Some I look back on and wince a little. And then there’s the third pile, the projects that never made it past my computer, sitting quietly in a folder, never used.
If I’m honest, that third pile used to bother me. It felt like wasted work. These days I see it differently.
The folder isn’t wasted, it’s just not finished
A project not going anywhere doesn’t mean the work didn’t matter. Plenty of client relationships stall, budgets shift, priorities change. None of that has much to do with whether the work was good. It just means that particular idea didn’t get its moment. That’s business, not failure.
And weirdly, those unused projects still do something. An old logo concept that never got approved might be exactly the starting point for a completely different brand two years later. Nothing really goes to waste in this job, it just waits its turn.
Every project, finished or not, makes us a better designer
This is the bit that actually matters. Every single project teaches me something, whether it ends up online or stuck in a folder forever.
Old work inspires new work. An element from a project three years ago will quietly show up, reworked, in something we’re doing this week. Every mistake we’ve made becomes something we know to check for next time. Every new technique we pick up takes less time the second, third, fourth time around. And every bit of client feedback, even the kind that stings a little in the moment, gives us a slightly different way of looking at the next project.
None of it is wasted, even the stuff nobody ever sees.
Ten years in, and we still don’t know everything
After more than 10 years doing this, we’d like to say we’ve got it all figured out. We haven’t, and we don’t think we ever will. There’s always a new trend, a new tool, a new kind of business that didn’t exist five years ago and now needs a brand that makes sense of what it does.
The business world doesn’t sit still, so branding can’t either. Every day there’s something new to learn if we want to keep making brands that actually communicate, rather than just look nice.
That’s honestly the part we like most about this job. It never gets boring, because it never lets you feel finished learning.
Fancy working on something new with us? Let’s chat!
