Q&A: Studio Something

I took this notion of doing stuff that only some people would like – and understand – into my business. All these things we make don’t need to be liked by everyone; we believe in making things that stand out and get noticed, drawing attention simply by being. Generally, the stuff we make is loved by the right people. 

We helped create the brand for a smart-money app called Choices. Within the app, we decided to create a series of characters called ‘Choicemakers. The theory behind the Choicemakers was that, because money is both emotional and scary, creating a series of characters to guide you along your financial journey would make things a little bit easier. So far so uncontentious, except we knew we wanted to make the Choicemakers look a little less than conventional.

We’ve had a lot of research sessions go awry, so we know when to listen to consumer feedback and change things. But if you listened to all notes from feedback sessions you’d end up with some very bland work; the trick is knowing what to concede and improve on. For us, that one thing was the Choicemakers’ thighs. They were massive and, seemingly, all people could look at. I’m all for being memorable but I didn’t want to be known as the thigh guy.