Why are studios launching their own brands? We spoke to four teams to unpack what’s really going on

Ask anyone in the design industry about the experience of starting and running a design studio, and they’ll tell you it’s an uphill task. Surely, managing admin and communication, all while leading projects, handling clients and delivering creative work isn’t a cakewalk. And yet, lately, some studios have been on the hunt for more. One of the many ways in which we’ve noticed this hunger for something bigger is in the rise in brands launched by studios. Case in point – Whitman Emorson launched Jems, Nihilo became co-founders of Casa Malka after they designed the brand world for it, Paleworks started CRAVERS, Two Times Elliott got involved with 220, and SICKDOGWOLFMAN debuted SLATHER. So, a question, quite inevitably pops up – why are studios launching their own brands? What itch are they trying to scratch? To find the answer, we put on our detective caps and talked to Nihilo, Whitman Emorson, Two Times Elliott and Paleworks to understand why designers want to do more than just design. When Nihilo began working on the identity for Casa Malka, nothing more than the name of the brand existed. So they “made everything up,” as Co-founder & Creative Director Emunah Winer says, and used the brand to fund and bring the product to life. In between it all, Winer and Co-founder & Creative Director Margeret Kerr-Jarrett also became Co-founders of Casa Malka. “As Co-founders, we ultimately got our hands dirty in so many things outside the traditional boundaries of what an “agency” (even one with equity) does,” Winer tells us. “We called suppliers. We met suppliers. We travelled to Mexico to meet with the distillery. We had bottle moulds made. We consulted with countless experts. We pitched to distributors. We sat on hundreds of hours of Zoom calls to try to figure out what the hell we were doing. Getting that deep industry knowledge and wetting our feet in the bev/alc world was incredibly eye-opening – and we loved it.” Amidst all of this, a single truth emerged from the experience of building Casa Malka, one that Nihilo already believed in – in a product’s journey, brand is king. “The biggest realisation we’ve come to over the past three+ years of involvement with Casa Malka is this – founders must make an intentional decision to treat brand as a foundational element of their company,” says Kerr-Jarrett. The fact that brand has such a big part to play in the success of a product gives designers and studios a unique edge in building and launching brands. They are, after all, the conductors who bring the orchestra of a brand together, so to speak. “For us, the experience has underscored how much of an advantage we have. To be able to do what we do at Nihilo is not simple and is not common,” Winer tells us. “We create new ideas from nothing; people think “Make the product, build the company, and then slap on the brand after.” For us, it’s the opposite – we see brand as the primary means of dialogue between the company and the consumer. If you’re not having that conversation, how do you know what to say?”