Commission - Talk & Rimowa Pitch

Chris and Ian from Commission Studio spoke to us online about their studio, and their work on re-branding Rimowa. 

Some of the interesting things they mentioned about there studio were:

• They work mostly within the fashion and cultural sectors
• Although they mostly do branding projects, they like to consider themselves a graphic design studio, not a branding agency
• A lot of the executions of their projects focus on simple idea, executed beautifully, because it ultimately makes that one idea a lot more precious
• They’re really interested in unusual and experimental production techniques, and often apply them to the production of their projects in a really bespoke way.
• For pitches or initial design, they often substitute making mockups for psychically producing and photographing various items of collateral in-house.
• They have a lot of connections in the creative industry who they often work with. Including illustrators, people in fashion, and photographers such as Luke Evans, who takes really beautiful shots of their work for their website, among other things. 

I really liked Commision’s portfolio of work and their general ethos and way of working. As my own design practise has developed, I have increasingly felt more and more of an affinity towards this idea of simple ideas executed beautifully. I think their focus on production and photography has lead to some incredibly inspiring and beautiful images and products, as evident on their website. 

They also had some good tips about how as graduating students, we should proceed. They suggested using this time we have at home to really develop and refine a great portfolio and/or website. They also said that when it comes to contacting studios, the email you send them should be personal, demonstrating that you know about their projects and that you’ve done you’re research. Things such as a signature at the bottom and a nicely composed email make it look a lot more more presettable and proffesional, and you should try and make your email around 3 short paragraphs, it can’t be too long or too short. 

Rimowa - It was really interesting for Commission to go through the presentation that they used to pitch for the Rimowa re-brand. Straight off the bat, one of the most interesting aspects was seeing the differences in their initial concepts, and the finished result, Chris addressed this by highlighting that when you’re pitching for a project and you win, that doesn’t mean that your designs will be applied as they are in the pitch, it means that you’ve won the opportunity to further work on it, and in Commission’s case, the project ended up developing in a few ways, a lot of this down to the CEO’s vision for the identity. 

What also really struck me was how incredibly refined and thorough Commission’s presentation was, they created so many different aspects of collateral for the brand, and each was meticulously produced and photographed. They mentioned that they don’t normally do pitches, however this one they couldn’t refuse, and every member of the studio worked on the presentation for 3 weeks solid. 

Pitching my Rimowa Project - I was very pleased  that Commission picked my Rimowa pitch as the winner. I got some really valuable feedback from them, indicating that my pitch was successful because I researched and thought of an original idea and response, applied it effectively throughout various aspects of the collateral and that every aspect of my pitch had thought behind it and rationalisation. It was really encouraging to hear them talk about the way I visually applied the grooves of the rimowa suitcases very effectively, and in a way that hadn’t occurred to them. Also the feedback that they gave me on how I could improve my designs was great as well - they said that the colour I picked were perhaps too bright for a luxury brand, this is something that I was aware, and wary of so perhaps I should have followed my instincts a bit more. They also suggested that the R on the logo which was in helvetica didn’t match the rest of the logo as it was a bit too curved. Finally, one piece of feedback which I found really valuable was when they said that the intersecting W letterform in the logo I created, whilst visually very interesting and well rooted in research, maybe couldn’t be used just because it resembles the VW logo too much. This had actually occurred to me, however I decided it would be fine and that it was different enough. I think while under the blanket of it being a uni project, often real world considerations like this can go astray, however, as a designer heading into the real world now, this sort of thing will have to be something I consider. They themselves said they had a similar scenario when they created a logo for DKNY a few years back which ended up resembling another brands logo too much. 

In general, although only on an online call as opposed to in person, I found Commissions talk with us one of the most valuable and engaging talks that we’ve had from professionals this year. This isn’t just because I won, although that was an added bonus, more so, as stated before I found their work and method really engaging and effective. Commission is definitely the sort of studio that I would love to work at; their projects are all within the cultural and fashion sector, they have a great range of clients, they are based in London and it sounds like the size and scale of their studio is small but not too small.