Studio
7 min read
Why our designers write the production code
Hand-offs are where good design goes to die. Here is how a four-person studio ships what it draws, and what we gave up to do it.
Most studios split the people who design a product from the people who build it. The file goes over a wall, and whatever comes back is a negotiation. We decided early that the same four people would do both.
What changes when designers ship
Decisions get cheaper. When the person choosing an animation curve also writes it, there is no ticket, no screenshot and no ‘close enough’. We try something in the browser, look at it on a phone, and keep it or throw it away in the same afternoon.
It also changes what we promise. We only propose what we know we can build at sixty frames a second on a three-year-old phone, because we will be the ones building it.
What we gave up
We say no to projects that need a team of twenty. We are slower on the first week and faster on every week after. For the clients we work with, that trade has been worth it every time.