A client’s perspective.

As any studio will know the journey towards presenting design concepts to a new client is a trepidatious one. Excitement and fear play an equal role. If you are the kind of studio that wants to create thought provoking work, each emotion is heightened. Sometimes, the fear dissipates as the excitement becomes shared. We had this gratifying experience today. It’s not as notable by its rarity as it is by the way the client (Alice from Britten Sinfonia) evocatively captured the journey from the client’s perspective. It made us think beyond our own experience of the journey, so thank you Alice. And of course thank you for your kind words – we look forward to progressing the project.

“Many years ago, when I was young and optimistic and in my first few experiences of working with a new designer, I used to get really excited about the day when we would see a new design concept for the first time. The Great Reveal. But it never worked quite like that. Even with the designs and designers that I came to love and that were very effective in the end, that first viewing was just a bit disappointing. A little bit like what other orchestras were doing; even a little bit like I’d done myself with another designer. It’s always felt as though, even though music is the widest possible genre and the word ‘orchestra’ can mean anything from three to 300 players performing music that might have been written a thousand years ago, or yesterday, there really were only three or four ways to represent us visually.

“So today, although we’d all really felt like we ‘clicked’ in our meetings with The District’s team, and though we’d felt inspired and excited, I lowered my expectations; anticipated even just a little bit of disappointment. How wrong I was. Fresh, challenging, striking visuals that are not just different from what every other orchestra is putting out there, but which felt like they all ‘belonged’ to Britten Sinfonia. Ideas that we could see the best of ourselves within and imagine ourselves owning and inhabiting. Concepts that match, reflect and also allow us to grow our artistic ambitions. We came away both excited and really confused, in a good way. How on earth are we to select one of the four concepts, each so different, but each so interesting in their way? What an amazing, and surprising, problem to have.”