Create Creative Creatives
Create Creative Creatives
How to run a design studio with Jonathan Key EP:006
Design is impossible to escape. From the carefully crafted user experiences in the products and apps that drive our daily lives. to the style and cut of the clothing you’re wearing right now and the 1000’s of messages we receive through Advertising and marketing every day.
So when crafting these messages and communicating product’s and service its important to do so from the standpoint of ethics & good intentions.
My guest today is my good friend Jonathan key, The Founder and Creative director of the Sydney design firm Studio 3 AM. In our conversation, Jonathan and I explore design from the perspective of being a youngblood coming up in the design industry all the way to what's involved in running your own studio & how to manage the creativity of others. And how to achieve great design for your clients with ethics in mind.
My design is impossible to escape from the user experiences in the products and the apps that drive our daily lives to the cut and the style of the clothing you're probably wearing right now. And let's not forget those thousands of messages that we get every single day through marketing and advertising. So when crafting these messages and communicating these products and services, it's important to do so from a standpoint of good ethics and even better intentions. Hey, I'm Hayden Buchanan, and this is Create Creative Creatives. My guest today is my good friend Jonathan Kay, the founder and creative director of design firm Studio 3 AM In my conversation with Jonathan, we get into what it's like to be an up and coming youngblood in the design industry, all the way to what it's like to have your own design studio and manage the creativity of others, always creating good work with good ethics in mind. As always, there are chapter markers below if you feel like skipping ahead through anything. But for now, please enjoy my conversation with my good friend Jonathan Cain. So first things first. Thank you so much for coming by and being a part of this today. Thank you so much. It's been. Years since we've seen each other. Right? Yeah, it's been a while. You know, just a few, you know, old world events, you know, stuff. A lot of things. Yeah. Yeah. And for those who don't know, you are Jonathan Kay and you run the studio at 3 a.m.. That's correct, yes. So it was two or three. I do. It's a design studio among a thousand other things. Mm hmm. Yeah. So Studio 3 a.m. founded five years ago. We're a creative agency specializing in art, direction, branding, motion animation. You know, anything creative, really? And yeah, it's been a while journey ever since it began. You've had a couple of high profile clients, like I mentioned at the band, the album artwork and yeah, the whole brand design for them, right? Yeah, absolutely. So I guess there are different levels and categories of work that we do, though. My roots kind of began with music, but we also work with bigger brands like Sony, Australia, Porsche, Audi. Um, yeah. And just loving it. Um, I worked for you for a little bit then. Yeah, social media stuff, actually. It was a couple of weeks. Yeah, yeah. Beautiful few weeks. But, um, you've had a small sort of studio for about two or three people for quite some time and quite the team now, don't you? Yeah. How many people and stuff now? Seven. Full time and full time, you know, one web and one sound when we need them. But, uh, yeah, it's been a really nice organic growth, I guess, over time. And because your peak was through COVID, like you were growing rapidly throughout COVID, right. Outside towards the end of COVID is really when everything started to accelerate. But um, yeah, at the beginning I think everything was like quite conservative. And to you quickly, you know, don't try to get too ambitious. But, um, you know, over time, as you know, people start to discover your work and discover you know, like your team and who you are and what you're about. Um, I think quite naturally, people gravitate towards things that they value and, you know, just people that are passionate about what they do, right? Yeah, I love that. And for you, when you started the agency, how did you go from obviously being a working designer to being an agency owner? How did that jump the curve for you? Well, if I'm being completely honest, I guess I didn't have a direct goal to start a studio of seven and then grow it from, you know, like to what it is right now. Um, it was actually quite more of a, I'm going to freelance with a friend for a bit, you know, we'll call ourselves a studio, but, you know, let's see how it, where it takes us. Um, it was a time in my life where, you know, I'd spent the last four years full time as a designer, and I guess I was just, like, seeking the next challenge, like, where to go from here. And I just, again, quite naturally fell into that spot of, you know, freelancing and trying to pick jobs that I was really passionate about. So with that, going from being in an agency where you get given the clients that are already there, how would you go about getting clients into a studio environment, even if it was just the two of you? Well, funnily enough, I guess I have always, you know, found organic ways to kind of work with people even in high school before, you know, I haven't really knew what graphic design was. I was obsessed with music, you know, doing album and things like that. And what I would do is I would I don't know if you've heard of this, but like triple j unearthed. Yep. Yeah. Like a really cool platform promoting just Australian independent artists. I would just go through all the artists and just find the artists that I really like gravitated towards love their music and, um, yeah, this is like speaking to my age, but I would go to their MySpace account and I would just like, send them a direct message being like, Hey, yeah, I'm still in high school, but would you like some of them? And to be honest, that hasn't changed too much. You know, occasionally I'll put myself out there, you know, it's not triple j. I know if this is it might be LinkedIn, it might be a news article that inspires me and that would make me go out there and just find their contact details and just send them a message. And, you know, sometimes something will come of it and other times nothing will. But, um, yeah, like, truly, it is just a case of, like, what am I passionate about? Who do I think is doing cool things and where do I think we should put our time and, you know, love. To a lot of the clients that you work with, you work with really long term. Like it's not just like one project you seem to be like that partner in. A lot of things absolutely appear at a time. How do you build those sorts of relationships in your business? MM Obviously there's like standards to hit and like delivering good work. And I know that two or three, um, delivers really, really high quality work and that's a big part of it. But what are the other things that you do that are sort of, you know, they're not on the invoice at the end of it that you get. Yeah. Observations. Yep. Going from there, I think it's pretty early on even when we have a new client or how they come on board to work with us. I'll make it really clear at the beginning that, look, we are a business, we need to make a profit. But I make it very clear that I'm interested in a partnership to make, you know, not only great work that, you know, obviously makes a profit for the end purpose, whether that be, you know, a musician, a big electronics brand or a car brand. But yeah, something that pushes the boundaries artistically and, you know, like we can be proud of this. I think life's too short to kind of do work just to do it. I'm really interested in, like, how do we push this brief? Um, how do we get the best value out of something and, you know, not just for the client or myself, but, you know, for my team as well, to be really creatively interested and invested in the end product. So I think what I'm getting at is that you love being like the creative solution to the business problems. Absolutely. Yeah, I get a huge kick out of that. Yeah, I civic anarchy. But um, yeah. And I think it's more like. The initial meetings and stuff like that. Totally, yeah. Is it like any trip boat trips, tricks that you use in how like discover those? I often like whenever I see a brief through my own work or anything freelance, there's what you've been asked to do and then there's what you're actually meant to accomplish. And you often don't align because the client or the business that you're working with can sometimes be so deep in the mud that they can't see how to fix it. And I guess that's why they're hiring out a studio like me. So how do you extract that kind of information out of them? Well, I guess in the last 1 to 2 years, we've started introducing, you know, workshops and what that allows us to kind of just come in early on and be like, look, we're new to this. We're going to need you guys to educate us on, you know, your product, your idea or your brand. But then, like, we lay it out or really simply like, what are you trying to achieve here? Like, what are the pain points? What are the goals having a combination of, you know, all those types of questions kind of leads you to a great result. And when I say challenges to clients, you know, or the brand to be like, Oh, this is where we want to go, but we've been doing it like this, like maybe we should switch it up. So again, I kind of never really push or like find sneaky ways to suggest things, but a lot of it is really the brand or the client, like just telling us what they need and then kind of admitting that, you know, they need a more creative solution to that problem. To sort of like letting them get out of their own way. Yeah, in a way, you know. Getting everything out there and for us to get everything out there because that gives us the opportunity to just share our efforts and ideas as well. But um, yeah, it's collaboration. At the end of the day, I, I don't think, I think the idea that a creative is coming to a client and the genius with the idea, I think that's completely false. Like I truly believe it's like a collaboration between two parties. And when you do enter into work, what's the kind of work flow that you guys like? So let's just say you've gone past that initial meeting, you understand that problem, and now you've got to actually get to the deep work of creating the visual assets. MM What's the workflow that you enter into to get that done? Well, you know, I really love the number three and the studio name, but um, yeah, I feel like even in process, everything comes in phrase so generally. Well spend the first stage doing discovery and as mentioned that may involve like a workshop or questionnaire which is like a bunch of meetings or us looking at the competitors saying what's out there? The whole second stage dedicated to just like really drafting and doing the work, right? You know, in the invoice it might be like we're presenting very concepts, but it's the work that we don't show as well that got us to like free, really good solutions. You know, you could pick any of those three and they would probably solve the client's problem and the brief, right? And that's just time. Like doing anything really great. Nothing comes for free, right? It's the investment of research and discovery. Looking at what's out there, um, being really inspired. And so, yeah, we, we do the design, we do the creative, we do the work. And then the third part, like executing, rolling it out properly once the client's happy with the direction and giving the client the choice to choose is a big part of the buy and to get a good solution as well. But what we kind of how we approach it is making sure that, you know, the free options we present. We love all of them. So really we don't have a. One strong one. Yeah, exactly. Like I've always hated that approach because, um, I feel like it's lazy for the agency to just go all in on one and then, like, not really care about the other two options. I think that's a bit to and again, like as a creative agency and as designers and creatives, animators like we think we know it all. But the truth is that, you know, you only have your own perspective. You're going to need the perspective of other people around you and the client to really get to the right place. And that's when you were starting out. Obviously, you've touched on yourself being out there getting worked on. That was the first love. MM. As far as like creating visuals, why, when did you decide that like this is what I want to do and what, what was that like? Was that like, I want to be a graphic designer, I want to do just album artwork and then that kind of formed into everything else. Yeah. Like when did you decide to go to school and all this? It's like, Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know if I ever told you, but I actually ended up dropping out of school. Yeah, yeah. So double university, drop outs. A lot, so on this fall as well. Yeah, yeah. That's cool kids. But yeah, I think, like, once I got the inkling that I really enjoyed music, um, you know, there's something that, like, clicks in you that you kind of know this is the thing for me. Um, I guess one of the really formative moments in that switch was, um, a TED talk, actually. Okay. Um, have you heard of this talk by Sir Ken Robinson? He's a, it's like one of the most watched TEDTalks of all time, but the topic is basically how schools kind of kill creativity, or are they doing it that way? Yeah, it's a really fantastic talk. Um, and that kind of made me realize that, you know, potentially my past wasn't like a traditional one where, you know, finish high school or get a uni, see where that takes you. Um, really early on I realized that the stuff that I was really passionate about and that I was good at because you can only be good at what you're passionate about over time, right? It was typography, it was visual, it was. It was artwork, it was music. And it was like kind of like psychology in a weird way, like how people think from a marketing point of view and business, all of those things that interest me. But um, doing commerce in high school never really like attracted me or hit those things that, you know, made me fall in love with what I do today. So, um, yeah, I guess that's kind of where the path like, switched for me. Um, I spent a lot of time doing album art and progressively like from that discovered what graphic design was. I mean, we take it for granted. Now everyone knows what graphic design is. You know, design is so, um, you know, like held up so highly. But that's because of Apple, I guess, you know, back in the 2000. So 910. Festival market design as a feature of a. Product. Exactly. Yeah. So we really take it for granted now. But I think before then, like the concept that people would put a lot of time and money into is just like purely the visual identity or like trying to push that phone. Or function of a form. And that's. Yeah, I kind of went completely the opposite direction in that we're kind of working our way back towards. Yeah, absolutely. And people have different perspectives on how that should work. But um, yeah, ultimately like design, like everyone knows what a font is now, right? Yeah. Cool. I was going into running a business. How do you find having staff has changed your approach to creativity? Because obviously it's not just you behind the computer making things now you're managing the creativity of creative people. Yeah, yeah. How has that changed or informed how you do your own work now? Absolutely. So I would say the first 1 to 2 years and you know, I say this quite honestly, we're in some ways creatively selfish because, you know, I just wanted that creative freedom to express myself and pick the clients. I want to do the work I wanted to do, but I didn't really have that long term vision of how it would turn out to run like a larger studio. And that's why, you know, I reiterate that like any great creative project, like it's not, you know, a solo project, like it's a team, you know, to make anything fantastic. It's all part of like growing a team. So a big part of my evolution and my role is, you know, being less hands on with the tools, but more giving creative direction and guidance to a brief, to a client and to my team. And, you know, sometimes that means that even in the early discovery stage, I'm not even, you know, doing design concepts. I'm really just creating a moodboard, sending a few references, giving feedback throughout the day just to make sure it's headed in the right direction. And, you know, yep, yeah. Well, there's good and bad parts to it, right? Um, you know, like, I would be lying if I said that I didn't feel like I owned it as much, but I guess that's problematic unto itself. Like, what's the artist's problem? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you start to realize is that if everything is owned, celebrated as a team, then it completely changes the dynamic. And, you know, the last 2 to 4 years is really like I've really embraced that and I've changed it. So it's no longer like, you know, what did I design or help design? It's like, here's what my team did and I start to really direct all the credit and, you know, and attribute it back to same because that's just honest truth. And um, yeah, again, I think the idea of like this one person behind it all is, is so silly. So I think, you know, all future creative directors and agencies are going to just like really push for the team and, you know, um, you know, why would anyone want to work for a studio as well that didn't kind of like empower them to do their best work and put them on a, you know, in the best place possible. So that's, that's what's changed with me. I just kind of want everyone that works and comes through for you to succeed and do well. Is it the case that with each different creative person that you like work with, that they need a different approach? Or have you found, you know, with, you know, people who work on illustrations more so they'd be a certain way and then people who work with typography or with visual media and things like video or motion assets and stuff like that, they're there a certain way. How is managing both the individual types of personalities, though? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's the same as, you know, that Ted talk about education, everyone's different and everyone should be curated and treated differently. Some people want more handholding and structure, other people need more space. But what I try to do is figure out conversations throughout the day really curate kind of a journey for them so that they are constantly getting better at increasing their skills, working on projects they're excited about and, you know, doing what they really want to do there. So for example, um, Marty, my art director who joined a few years ago, he has a deep rooted passion for like cause. And so it was in my best interest to make sure that, you know, he had something that he was really passionate about and, you. Know, it comes out. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, he's so detail orientated, he's about precision. So, you know, giving him something where he could really dig his teeth into and be an incredible art director, designer like I knew that would be for him. And with Mike, he's, you know, just an incredible award winning designer. Yeah. Just giving people the same, like, opportunities. Like, if I had joined the studio for the first time coming out of uni, what kind of career opportunities and like resources would I have loved to have gotten? So I ask myself that a lot. And um, yeah, we have such an incredible team right now, Katrina, with the animation and as with the digital direction. Julia He's managing it all, you know, just really incredible team. So lucky to have him. Um, touched on like growing your skills and things like that. And where did you find was the first place of growth that you needed to take on in terms of your own skill set? Um, so obviously you have that foundation with just making things look nice and like layouts and color and all those sort of the foundations. But then how did you expand on from there? Because I know that you've done a bit of absolutely everything that's available to you. Yeah, um, I think I'm. I mean, you know, me, I'm quite geeky, so quite organically I get drawn to a new medium or a new discipline, whether it be like animation or like 3D illustration. And I want to learn it or at least understand it. The obsession. Yeah, I'm I might be terrible at it, but I think as a creative director, I feel like I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't at least know the vernacular or how to communicate what I want to someone on my team. So, you know, I've always fought that. And I figured out pretty early on that if I wanted to become a good creative director, I would have to kind of put my hand in a little bit of discipline. Be unstoppable. Yeah, exactly. But I said just give everyone the space to do what they're great at and specialize. And so the creative side I have never really wrestled with, it's really the business side that was the biggest hurdle for me. You know, I'd spent all his time and and all these years, like, investing in my craft to be like a really good creative. And then that jump to starting a studio, it's like, Wow, I know absolutely nothing. And I am like absolutely terrible. Like, I can be completely honest, like the first few years, like, shambles, you know? But, um, you know, I also don't regret it. I think like with business especially, um, you're going to fail anyway, even if you got all the right advice and tried to do all the right things. I think you're going to make mistakes. So I can just kind of be happy that, you know, luck worked out for the best, and I got enough second chances to do it the right way. Um, you know, in the first few years, would I have done things differently? Like, of course. But, um, yeah, right now, like, we're headed in a really great direction. Um, looking for B Corp certification, if you know what that is. And yeah. For people who don't know what it is, what is. B Yeah. So B Corp certification, basically it's this idea that businesses aren't just built for a profit, but they're built for a purpose as well. And that's all nice to say no. But what's great about it is that it forces the company to like put a bunch of policies in place to make sure that even if this company got sold off in the future by something else, that it would always remain like something built for good. Um, and that's something I'm really passionate about, you know, I don't want to invest all his time making this great business and then, let's say 20 years down the track. It's like having an ethics code built in. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. It's really important to me. But I also think it's really important for everyone working here as well. Um, you know, you do want to work for some place you don't believe in, you know, in the founders beliefs or the company's beliefs. Like we're all the same team. And so you really want to make sure that. Everyone is telling the right to go in the same direction? Yeah, absolutely. What on the whole business element, I think you've had a bunch of trial and error. If you were to give somebody starting a studio any advice on how to make a profitable. Yeah. In particular, um, keep the doors open, keep the lights on. What are the elements that make a studio profitable? Mm. Well, I think being organized for one, and not being afraid to talk about money, um, one of the biggest problems I had early on was that I still kind of just saw myself as a freelance graphic designer. And money was it was that awkward topic, you know, you agreed to a project fee, maybe you agreed to a project fee and not an ally, right? Right. And now you've exceeded the hours. Maybe you weren't as defined with the amount of edits that you needed and now you're stuck in a situation where you should be asking for money, but because you've never learned how, you just don't know how to ask for it. Um, that kind of took a lot of like a few years and a lot of getting screwed. Over a couple of. Times. Yeah, getting screwed over. Um, but, you know, I, um, I'm really like, okay to admit what I'm good at and what I'm definitely what I'm bad at. And, you know, the, the saying that you can admit all the things you're bad at, you can work on them and get better at them. So, you know, whether it be like taking online courses, reading books, some yeah. I've really invested heavily in the last few years to kind of take that journey and I'm always a work in progress, you know, as a creative director, as a, as a bit of a business owner. Like there's so much to learn you'll never learn or and you know, sometimes you do well and sometimes you do bad, but, um, yeah, just doing the best I can do. Yeah. As an artist, when you're looking at hiring somebody and your business owner on top of being an artist, how do you decide between those two parts of yourself when looking at staffing or clients or elements of running your studio, where does the artist come forward and then when does the artist go back in the business man comes forward like where do those two elements push and pull on on the daily basis? Yeah. So once upon a time, if I had to weigh it myself, I would try to be like a 5050. And the more the business has grown, I've realized that's not going to work out. And you know, these days I'd think it'd be more like an 80% business and 20% autistic creative director. You know, I'm really quite comfortable these days, like embracing that role, and I'm kind of finding that the business side can be as creative, you know, in a way, especially to get a good solution because you kind of you have to push the client or the brand in the right direction in order to get a great creative solution. So in many ways, it's kind of like you're batting for your team in a way, and like trying to get get wins and push great ideas across. Yeah. And that's kind of where I'd place it at the moment. With design and the design world, you know, sharing from many influences around the world through the Internet and design fairs and things like that. How have you seen from, you know, the length of your career so far, design change here in Australia and around the world? MM Um, I think design is more accessible now than ever before. Information, resources, like if you want to learn design, you've got platforms and YouTube channels like the future that are just getting used to. Yeah, he's everyone's like business mentor in a weird way. Matthew and Senior. The Yeah yeah. I very much binge his YouTube channel now. Oh yeah. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Great taste. I mean, there's so much out there now that I feel like anyone with the right mindset and commitment could probably make it work. Um, design is so accessible, anyone could start a design studio. In theory, maybe the things missing these days is because it used to be harder. There are certain lessons that are harder to teach now because there is. That information is just right there at your fingertips. And so being able to kind of find answers that aren't easily accessible. Doesn't go into more of a practical experience, is harder to find because you can find the theoretical answer, I think. So an easy solution that's not necessarily the best option. Is that that kind of a problem potentially? I think, you know, software is a bit of a weird example, but something that is like two clicks away in Photoshop used to take someone a whole day. Yeah. And like, that's a wild thing to think about. And that's why, you know, as a creative, you always kind of got to be on the cutting edge and like up to date with what's going on. So design as a as a discipline is a lot less about like how long things take, but more idea driven, you know, any like I think in the future you're going to have tools like Canva that are free and you know, it makes design the cost to access it so simple and easy, but to be able to actually do something with strategy for it and intention behind it, like I think, yeah, like anything, anything you want to be a mostra that takes years. Yeah. Kind of changes what the business sells as well. Exactly. Yeah. Um, again, like design, people perceive it as how it looks, but again, we might be digging too much into maybe brand strategy and campaigns, but yeah, it's, it's the effort and the strategy behind it of we know how you change minds and bring someone on, on a journey, on a story. Right? If you were just beginning, how would you go about getting not necessarily the way you are, but how would you go from being completely novice and just interested in design to working in the industry? What would you say is the best path or your recommended path to get in the door? I think it would probably be doing a bunch of internships throughout uni if you have the time. I know that is quite a luxury, but if you couldn't do internships then just like trying to decide projects as you still studying. By the time you get out of university, do not, you know, position ourselves as the place to be. But I do think there's a lot to be said that like a small studio or a small environment and spruik. The heck out of this, by the. Way. But honestly, like a smaller studio is going to give those, you know, whoever joins like more love and care and attention, whereas if you joined a bigger agency or a bigger company, you might get paid a few more. K But you know you're going to get the attention or like career path and journey that you probably need, like potentially not. You're not going to get that progression. So I would just look to early on in your career to invest in yourself, you like learn as much as you can, humble yourself because at the beginning you don't know anything. Right now I don't know enough. And people older than me and have been in this much longer, they're still learning. So you never know at all. What would be your top resources to jump into? Obviously you just mentioned like watching the future, which is like you can spend I think months at a time just sitting there watching all kinds of different talks that they do and running through one on one actions and stuff. I think that's one of the best resources on YouTube. But what other resources are out there for an up and coming designer? Yeah, so. Absolutely history today. Yeah. Well, I guess a lot of people would like to give very design or business focused resources, but I think mental is kind of like the best place to start because you got all mental being like the mindset and understanding, you know, the journey that you're about to go on. So that was a really important book I read. Probably like that changed my viewpoint on my career path. And it's called um, How to Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul. It's a really incredible book because it doesn't just pose, you know, like the career journey questions, but ethical questions, you know, for example, someone a studio had a client in the tobacco industry. One of the people working there was against it, and one person was for it. But they both said yes to doing the job. But only one person failed that because they were going against their own beliefs. Right? So if you're happy to do it, you know, then you are who you are. But if you said yes to that and you are against tobacco, it means that you had just betrayed your values, what you believed in. And so I think it's a really important distinction when you get into advertising, marketing or design that you've got to be really aware. While not every client equally either. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting. Um, going into the ethics side of things as well, what are the areas that you look at for being ethical in that obviously there's making sure that what your, um, the story that you're telling is true. Um, or if it's fictitious that it's obviously a fictitious story. What are the sort of ethical areas that you run into when you're trying to like either find a client or put together a brief? Hmm. It's funny because it's, you know, people may say advertising and like ethics kind of hypocritical in some ways because at the end of the day, you're trying to sell a product, which is consumption. Right? But I think that if you have a mindful advertising agency that has those ethics and values in mind, if it were to ever come up. So in decisions that we felt were wrong or didn't weren't truthful, we would kind of bring it up and we would make sure that it wouldn't go out, right. So a lot of the time people behind the scenes, every decision matters, right? And so just having that intention of making sure things are true for and are the best for the world is a great place to start. Yeah, I guess people might say, you know, something like I don't want to give it to specific examples, but um, let's say alcohol because that's everyone like I love to drink a lot of. Alcohol, beer ads out. There. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a creative goldmine, right? Because it gives you the freedom to really express yourself, be funny. But alcohol is a double edged sword, right? Because it causes. So it can cause. Regulations around the other. Times. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, in many ways it's not a filter of like what types of client categories I will or won't do, but really like who you're working with and the value of making sure that it's authentic and truthful. Um, again, like there are certain ones that are just like, no goes tobacco for personal reasons. I would just wouldn't do that. But, um, you know, if someone smoked and they didn't have a problem with it, then like, you know, power to them. Like, I just think people have to be authentic. You know what? They're okay and comfortable working on. Something that's a bit more of a personal question for you at this point leads towards like tips and tricks for other people, but how do you refresh your creativity? MM What are the things that you do that aren't necessary for the agency, but for you to feel like you're refreshed and that you're feeling creative again? MM Yeah. That's a really beautiful, meaningful question for me now as I kind of that, that is. That 20. Percent. Yeah. And that ratio is starts to change. You know, you start to miss being hands on, you know. That being said, when I am hands on, I'm like, wow, this is really hard work. I remember what being a creative director is a nice position. But yeah, the truth is, I really miss being hands on with the tools and actually designing. But um, what I've been really intentional about is setting some time aside after work or on the weekend and working on a lot. Yeah. Been picking up guitar, teaching my partner ukulele. Um, just doing anything creative that sits outside of that world. It's kind of nice, to be honest, to have the freedom to just do things for you, even if I were to never share them with my friends like you just kind of getting it out of my system and to know for myself, like. There's not a client attached to the art sometimes. Yeah, but I think, you know, there's something beautiful with that. Every all the work we do for you obviously gets shared to millions of people. There's something nice about just designing something for myself and maybe not showing anyone, but that would definitely be some artistic side projects that I get really I'll release over time. But yeah, for now I think it's still maybe one 1 to 2 years away. What elements in your early career? Because I would I would say that you're quite a high output person. Whether that used to be in the designs and the volume of working good that now the output is managing and running your business. Um, how did you go from, what were the things that you did to get yourself to that high output position? Because obviously there's a lot of ambition that drives that sort of thing for yourself. But what was it making sure that you had like a good sleep schedule? Obviously. Definitely in. The studio 3 a.m. I. Made a case. Well, we will leave at 530 to be very clear. But um. Yeah, at early days it was pretty bad I would say. Yeah, as it always is, depending on Yeah. Whatever my late night. So just know. You know as much as I would hate to admit it, I think early on it was a little bit of that the late nights and um, you know, being really intentional with my time, having always making sure I'm putting aside to get better at a program, or reading a book, um, trying to fill myself up with as much information as I can. So the other work outside of the work that informs the work. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I always had a side project ever throughout uni high school whether that be like not doing a law installation as part of Vivid um, trying to learn photography and filming, you know, there are things that you do is like little side projects and then, you know, down the line you might be directing a commercial, you might be working with a band. Yeah. You just never know when that will come back around. Right. So definitely just like side projects and being intentional of time. So with three, um, being this big team now you guys are able to accomplish much larger projects as well. Is there anything that you guys have been working on recently that's been one of the bigger sort of milestone accomplishments of the company? Yeah, absolutely. So we have a really great partnership with Sony Australia. And so the past few campaigns and projects we've done, whether it be for cameras or Bravia TV's or the sound department, um, just some of our best work that I'm really proud of. And, and then we've got some really nice, interesting branding projects. We did a restaurants in Barangaroo called Tequila Daisy. We found this back in Hamish. Incredible chefs and then some stuff in like the digital crypto space as well with our block and trying to change the future of finance. So I'm sure there's plenty more, you know, projects that I'd love to share to whoever is listening to this. But, um, yeah, if you visit our website, I'm sure we'll update it in the next few weeks. And the website is. Studio Free DOT AM. So you mentioned that you've done some stuff with the company called blockchain. Is Blockchain influencing the way you guys work or is that just more of a new space that's opening up that you're seeing more and more people requesting design services for? How's the blockchain world expanding into your world? Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Well, what we're seeing right now is the idea of crypto becoming mainstream. So it's I'm sure it's not just our studio, but it's being pretty widespread that all these new crypto products are coming out. So we're working with a really nice new brand called BLOCK Owner, and they're trying to solve the problem of making crypto accessible and mainstream and understandable for normal Australians. You think of crypto, it's like, oh, and the geeky or technical people know how to do that. But the learning curve, yeah, with it for the three months that you need to be at the start, you kind of like get lost. Yeah, exactly. So it's an interesting question, right. Or challenge. How do you get the everyday Australian who is not interested in in technology or crypto to use it like an everyday bank? Right. And so what they've done is just kind of take that experience of a normal banking online account like a Commonwealth Bank or everyday saver and making that accessible in the exact same way. But it's all using crypto technology and it's kind of doing all the magic in the background. But yeah, it looks like a normal bank transfer, but really it's painting. Exactly, exactly. But with much more competitive interest percentages and things like that. So yeah, really interesting space. And just how. How are you guys implementing designed to fix the solutions of communicating that idea? Yeah, absolutely. Well, what a funny problem. I guess they were having initially was positioning themselves as a product for everyday Australians. Unfortunately, you don't get to jump from being a crypto category, category of brand directly into being for everyday Australians. So in order to kind of get more people to sign up really they should be targeting people who at least have a bit more of an inkling in the crypto space or the digital space and then slowly transition to being like completely widespread mainstream. So that was a bit of a change of strategy that they themselves had realized and came to us to kind of approach visually. And from that we've launched multiple campaigns with them. And yeah, it's kind of great. So I guess for people who hear the word creative director, title of creative director, it's it can be quite broad in many ways. What does it mean to be a creative director for Jonathan Quay at three? Yeah, you're right. There is quite broad and you know, umbrella heading. It means something different for every industry as well. But I guess in the context of advertising, you've got the two sides, right, you've got the client side and you've got the studio side. In terms of the studio side, you got people working on the actual like design and the art direction, things like that, how it looks and feels. But in order to kind of bridge the gap between the client side and the design side, you're going to have to have someone communicate with the client, not just understand, you know, what visual goals you're trying to solve, but what business goals they're trying to solve as well. So you get the bird's eye view of the whole thing. Exactly. Just like the specialized. Exactly. And what this does is it gives the designers, the art directors, the freedom to kind of go wild, do amazing creative. And then I can just come in and just make sure it's on the right route, that the strategy and the business goals are deeply embedded with every decision. Again, like design, if you've got a talented team, of course it's going to look fantastic, right? Yeah. But is it going to look fantastic and also help solve a basic problem that that stuff. Is making things pretty? Exactly. Again, a lot of it is that having that bird's eye perspective of an entire project, I remember as a designer, I would get really frustrated because I would be like, Oh, but this looks better. You know, this like I've been working on this for a whole day. I know for a fact this looks better, but unfortunately for designers, it's not always a case of what looks better, but what's going to get the best result for the bigger picture, whether that be a bigger picture for a system for the brand strategy, or sometimes like a brand just wants to be a little more conservative and you know, that's completely okay as well. So it's an interesting obstacle, but like I guess creative direction is seeing that client side and the creative side and bringing those two components. There's a large element of project management in there as well. Yeah, a little bit these days we brought on a studio manager, the lovely Rio, who is making everything, you know, just like seamless, smooth, nice and clean. Not like before. Once upon a time, I was managing the projects, but I guess these days I get to focus a little bit more on like the creative feedback, making sure I'm giving direction so that everything is heading towards the same points and not like disparate, messy map. So Rio will make sure that actual project timelines and tasks are neat and tidy, and I'll make sure that the creative is likewise headed in a nice, clean and smooth path. So you guys are located in Sydney. What's up? Is your office in Darlington? Does in Darlington there? So being a part of like Sydney in the West, there's a lot of creativity happening around there and Sydney has a lot of creative pockets around the place. What would you say from your personal perspective is the future of creativity in Sydney? Yeah, well I think, you know, if we compare ourselves to maybe other cities around the world, we're a little more insular and we have our own circles, our little clicks and you know, like you have a group. But are these groups connecting with other groups? Maybe not. Yeah. I think the more that we work towards that, Sydney is going to be a much more collaborative and creative place. Things like this podcast, for example, you know, being really honest and you know, like transparent about how things work with us and different creatives like I think that's such a brilliant thing. And you know, I'd just like to say that like if anyone wants to ask about anything we do or, you know, just get coffee, like I'm always open book, I guess with that kind of stuff. You just have to buy the coffee then. That's the trick there. Yeah. No, but, um, yeah, so it's very much about like getting all those nodes connected to each other. How do you see that happening? Um, well, there's a really great event called the Design Kids Originally intended for graduate students studying design university focus. Yeah, but I guess the brand has evolved to just become something. If you're into creativity, you can attend. These advertising called Our Youngbloods. Yeah, Youngbloods. Yeah, that's great as well. So that's an incredible event. And we're actually going to be hosting a talk later this year, opening up our studio, inviting really anyone to just come in and check out some of our projects as we kind of share the process, talk about our journey, you know, how we got from like a little, you know, 1 to 2 freelancer type set up to like a full fledged studio. Yeah, I think there's a real beauty in like getting rid of all the smoke and mirrors and just like sharing that knowledge. And then it's, you know, I have no problem sharing that knowledge. It's going to make us stronger. It's going to make the future of the Sydney design seem funny. Like it doesn't matter who I've had on the podcast yet, whether they be dancers, photographers, musicians, whatever, it always comes back to that. There's like, there's enough of the pie to go around for everyone. Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny how you see certain people really like hold onto their little corner either don't touch my, touch my, touch my pie. But then there's other people have a slice, come sit with me and they can kind of end up enjoying the experience of your work even more. Mhm. When you share the pie, that's my pie analogy but yeah. When we flipped out there but I. Love a good analogy. But it's funny sort of witnessing three different perspectives how Sydney in particular is, so I guess noted out into different pockets of areas. But then there's crossovers happen every so often and when they do it's really, really great. So interesting to see how that could happen more and more, um, in the future. Well, thank you so much for coming on and chat all things creative and design. Appreciate it, man. Thanks for having. Hey, and thanks for sticking around to the end of this episode of Crazy Creative Creatives. Thank you to Jonathan for jumping on the podcast and sharing all things design. If you feel like checking out Studio 3 a.m. and all the great work that they do, there's a link below in the description, just that if you missed that previous episode, had the Vienna maria talking all the things about manifesting creativity and mental health and creatives until next time I've had and Buchannan and this has been great creative creatives I'll see you next Tuesday.