Five years of Company Policy, a studio built to keep changing shape — The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design

Company Policy started in the middle of the pandemic with no expectations, just the belief that a studio is meant to evolve and change. Five years in, the brand studio has taken multiple shapes. They believe that the only honest way to work is to treat each problem, client, and brief with a fresh approach. The New York-based brand studio has evolved to become primarily remote, led by Founder & Creative Director Adam Katz and Director of Operations Nicole Banda. They’re committed to building the next generation of studio work in a way that works harder for everyone. Roles are fluid as designers tackle writing tasks and strategists tinker with design. Everyone contributes to the final product. There’s always a fresh path toward a solution. New challenges and industries are not only welcomed; they’re invited. In our conversation, Katz and Banda talk us through what making it up as they go has taught them, their decision to start their Substack, Water Cooler, where the studio thinks out loud, and their direction for the next five years.

TBI Hi all! How are things at Company Policy, five years in?

AK Five years in, we've evolved countless times, and really, we're just getting started. We now take on larger scale and more challenging work with confidence. Some things have changed, some haven’t. Our structure is amorphous, and we’re using that to our advantage, allowing our studio to evolve and grow as our client list, employees, and interests change.

We started in the middle of a pandemic. That meant the world was uncertain, and it felt like a great time to start a studio in uncertainty and make it up as we went along. Now five years later, uncertainty is the new normal and adapting as we go is still the only honest way to operate.

NB The puzzle pieces fall into place with each project we complete. There's more structure in place now, and despite every project being unique, we’ve built more intuitive components to our process. We still don't know what's next typically, as every day and every client looks a little different, but that's what makes working as a studio exciting and worthwhile. We're creative because we love the idea of possibility, and growing our studio mirrors that same sentiment.

Our structure is amorphous, and we’re using that to our advantage.

TBI Adam, take us back to the start – why did you decide to start Company Policy?

AK Starting a studio was a dream I had had when I initially left university, but that seed had been planted for years. My dad was an entrepreneur; he has his own signage and wayfinding design shop, and I remember interning for him in the summers and thinking this feels right. I registered then that I wanted to design an environment for people to thrive in much as he had. When I started the studio, it was the typical founder cliché of ’let’s take the ideas and learnings from past jobs to form something new’. That, however, became clearer as I had my own unique perspective differing from just my past experiences.

What I never imagined was how much the people I brought on would inspire and change the studio’s form. Our studio has evolved into a living, breathing organism. We nurture it, we grow it, we check in on it. It has a piece of everyone who has ever touched it. It’s been a beautiful experience, and I can’t wait to see what the next five years have in store.

TBI Making it up as you go is something the studio still stands by five years on. What does running a creative business on instinct look like day to day?

NB Well it isn’t always pretty. Making it up as we go isn’t ideal for everyone. A project can look the same on paper in theory, but when it comes to executing on a brand for a client that wants to stand out in the space, it definitely requires us to hone in on our instinct. Every client and every problem is different and should be treated uniquely. We always make sure our clients are in on the process, moulding the clay.

AK We're a very collaborative team, even though we lack a lot of the traditional aspects of a studio, including having a physical studio space; we believe working together is the best way to produce results. This means touching base frequently, working openly, creating a safe space to fail, and learning from one another. We chose to call ourselves a studio (not an agency) because we wanted to build a culture of exploration that a studio nurtures. Making it up as we go means we have to explore and question ourselves a lot. There are new learnings from every project, big or small, that we always end up somehow incorporating into our process. It means taking risks and exploring new topics or interests. It also means that the studio today is not how it will be in the future, and that is what excites us to continue on.

TBI How has the studio, and the work you do, changed since those early days?

AK We’ve become far more strategic with how we approach brand building. We believe that across the board, brands today in most industries are overall looking pretty good. What you get as a result of feed culture is a sea of sameness in nearly every industry. So what sets a brand apart and makes it distinct is its positioning, approach, and verbal identity paired with a visual identity. We spend more time these days writing than we did in the beginning, and as a result of that, our work is more pointed, distinct and well, better.

TBI What do you know now that would have been most useful to hear when you were starting out?

AK So many things. If we knew all the stuff we know now, we may not have even started. Things change so fast – economies, industries, mediums, popular aesthetics. What works today doesn’t necessarily work tomorrow. It’s important to stay nimble and adapt as you go. Focus on the big picture, but never forget, the devil is in the details.

It's best to set up north stars early and often. Corral around what’s feeling right and what's feeling wrong earlier, rather than later. We share behind-the-scenes and cutting-room-floor explorations with our clients, and in the process, have really great conversations. It allows us to get to the right answers earlier.

TBI The studio isn’t organised by discipline – designers write, strategists concept. How does that overlap impact the work that comes out?

AK It makes our work much richer. People by nature are multi-disciplinary. They have multiple interests and skills. Allowing people to colour outside the lines brings more richness and diversity to the studio’s output. It also means that, in building a brand identity, the copy isn’t alien from the design and vice versa; they work together. We believe brands should look, talk and act just like themselves. Allowing people to cross disciplines brings an honest authenticity to this practice. 

TBI What do you look for in the people you bring into the studio?

NB We look for people we can genuinely learn from and who are just as curious about the world as we are. As you stated, we love designers who write, coders who animate, animators who code, etc. We believe that to build a solid design system it takes strategy, messaging, and visual design, and we like when people aren’t afraid to contribute to multiple areas of a project. We also love bringing in people who have unique perspectives, aren’t shy to share, and who want to change the dynamic of who we are because we are always evolving and changing based on our team.

TBI How would you describe what ties your work together – the studio’s DNA?

NB It sounds sort of naive but it's truly in our initial policy; to make great work for great people. We believe that is our studio’s DNA. And we believe great work lives in our solutions, not just our portfolio. We believe in doing it with, and for, people we genuinely like and can learn from.

Great work lives in our solutions, not just our portfolio.

TBI You write a Substack, Water Cooler. Why did you start it?

AK We started Water Cooler because we have thoughts and concerns about where the creative industry is heading. Too much of creative work is about the pretty pictures and the results, not about the difficulties we encounter or the hard questions we must ask ourselves as an industry. Water Cooler gives us a place to share our thoughts, feelings and questions in a deeper, more conversational way than what we get out of our typical day-to-day work. It also allows us to think critically and engage in discourse with the industry at large, something we welcome.

TBI On your Substack, you mentioned a pull towards work you can feel with your hands, like activations, storefronts and installations. Why so?

AK We aren’t doing a lot of this type of work at the moment, but we want to continue expanding into it. We love tactile design, making things people can interact with, touch, feel and use. We work digitally, so to make a tangible design come to life is always very exciting. We believe brands should lean into this. Too often brands are screen-based today; we recognise that is where branding has moved to, but we encourage brands to consider where society is headed already. We’re all craving less screen time and more interaction with our lived environment.

TBI The studio’s best work has happened in industries you haven’t touched before. Why does that unfamiliarity end up being an advantage?

AK It’s truly why most of us became designers in the first place – to do new things constantly and to not repeat ourselves. We believe our clients already have the depth in their industry and that they don’t need more of it from us to add to the sea of sameness. We love when we’ve never worked in an industry! It’s exciting, nerve-wracking, and it’s precisely why we won’t make that brand look like its competitors. We bring the breadth of what’s happening in the broader world of culture, design, technology, wellness, and economics to define how a brand can communicate in a unique way no one else can.

TBI The dream brief is the Olympics. Why?

AK There’s no bigger global cultural moment in the world (well, maybe the World Cup). It’s one of the few briefs on earth where the design has to hold up across every culture simultaneously, and where, if you get it right, it lives forever. Just look at Lance Wyman’s Mexico 68 identity. We’re passionate about sport as well, so doing something that is the definition of sport is so alluring to us.

The work needs a story, a reason for making people care.

TBI After five years, what’s something about running the studio you’ve changed your mind on?

AK The work should speak for itself. We used to think that our work would just find its way to the audience naturally, but today that isn’t good enough. The work needs a story, a reason for being and a reason for making people care. The digital landscape has changed how we share work. Today we can build a case study, launch the finished results on the web and social and discuss how we got there in our Substack. The work is supported by the story. It’s almost like Behind the Music or Song Exploder. Sharing how we got there is just as exciting as the polished pieces.

TBI Five years in, you’ve said you have a direction rather than a plan. What does that direction look like heading into the next five?

AK Left – no, right – no, maybe straight? Definitely straight, but with some zig-zags.

Five years ago, when we were starting, a lot of people assumed things would return to ‘normal’ eventually. They didn’t, really. They just became a different kind of normal, with a different set of pressures and a different horizon of uncertainty.

The next five years will probably be the same. We're not afraid of what's coming. We're more interested in exploring the digital world, deepening our curiosity with our process, and making things that are worth making.

We still don't have a destination, but we have a direction. And that, five years in, feels like enough.