Our Ideology
All-in-all, a pair of crappy shoes is still a pair of crappy shoes whether or not the laces are bright and the logo is big. |
Most companies say they're different. They'll give you a few a few bullets on how spectacular they are but the reality is, most companies are just subtle variations of their competition. Good companies and good products and solutions have commonalities--average or mediocre companies / products / solutions all share commonalities with their competition too (there's just a lot more bad stuff than good stuff).  Our ideology is different from most, but not all Much like everything else (in our humble opinion), there is a lot of mediocrity in design and very little good design but good design, and good design firms, have a lot in common--a lot of 'good' in common. Thoughtful and purposeful design (information architecture, information design, visual design) yields better solutions because we, as thoughtful and purposeful designers, come from a different, we'll say rare, place. Whether it is better education, more talent (or more harnessed talent), more / better logic, more experience, more creativity, a better process or more and better of all of it, we, at Arena, share the ideology that good design is good business. We didn't make it up but we believe in it. We do not have templated design or templated solutions. We do, however, have a process which allows original thoughts and ideas to be discovered and developed. We believe it is better to adhere to a successful process than to appropriate someone else's seemingly successful solution. We do not appropriate others' ideas. Rather, we allow our process of discovery and process of design to generate creative ideas and creative solutions--solutions specific to you and your project. We believe that context has everything to do with everything and what 'works' there, may not work here. We believe it is due diligence to know and understand current trends and fads but strongly caution against carelessly incorporating them--it may not be in your best interest to waste your budget on trendy design when that trend could backlash next week (unless, of course, you are in fashion where it is entirely about trends--and thus, entirely about context). Our focus is larger than just the results Make no mistake, the results matter but we do not focus on what the results might be during the process. It is our belief that if you are so focused on the pending results, you forget to do your job and miss everything else--like the better ideas which are always revealed along the way. This is a small but perfect example of what we mean. One of our clients asked us to redesign a postcard for a targeted mail campaign. The year prior, a results-oriented and results-promising marketing firm developed a postcard that yielded our client a 2% return--100 calls/inquiries. The postcard we designed yielded a 12% return--600 calls/inquiries. How can that be if we don't make results a priority? We feel if you focus on the spirit of the messages you are conveying, the results are always better--inherently. Being true to the message and employing good design practices always speaks louder than gimicks, fads and poor design. So what makes us "good"? We feel what makes us good starts with our belief system, our ideology and ethics, and continues throughout all aspects of our process. Those with a better process will have the ability to render better results. Add a great deal of talent and experience to the ideology and process, and you now have the ability to accomplish superb results. We have a solid process. We're smart. We're talented. We care. It's that simple. |
