The Future of the Studio

The past 14 months have seen arguably the largest seismic shift in our lives, certainly in the west, since the end of the second world war. It has fundamentally changed the way we look at our lives and it will be a long time, if ever, before we can think of approaching normality again.

But what will ‘normal’ be for our working lives in the creative industries?

I have worked in creative studios and Ad agencies for my entire adult life, which is now quite a long time (don’t ask). At Think Artfully/Jelly we were lucky enough to find a perfect studio space pretty early on in our existence. We have now been there since the late ‘90’s, starting first with one floor, then expanding to two as we became more established, and our Charlotte Mews is well known inside the industry now, some of you may have even been to one of our famous darts nights there.

In the early days, the studio was packed out with freelance artists, it was necessary to produce, assemble and deliver physical pieces of art all in one place. We needed artists, artworkers, studio managers and typesetters to co-ordinate the endless flow of boards and artwork being collected by waiting couriers, who would then (hopefully) deliver said art to harassed traffic managers and production folk all over London and beyond. Large format tapes were being shipped to broadcasting houses, from chunky U-Matic machines, the studio was a mess of polyboard, scalpels, spray mount and other hazardous materials, what a time to be alive – or was it?

Then came digital – and all that stopped. The artists didn’t need to work in-house anymore, the constant stream of couriers in reception dried up and the studio assumed a new form. Animators and illustrators now stooped over glowing monitors in-house, work was despatched and assembled electronically, it was a quieter, calmer place, there were now more producers and project managers. Work was now being created all over the world, not just locally, and we became a digital hub to oversee creative product from everywhere.

So, the studio has been a constant – evolving – presence from the start and been in constant use although the use has changed.

But what now?

Over the Covid period, like everyone else, we have proved that we can create great work whilst working remotely. Largely, it’s been a busy year for animation and illustration and on the in-house production side, we have been working at full-stretch.

But at what cost?

With everyone working at home, or living at work, and a large percentage of the sales side of the studio on furlough to preserve jobs, it has been almost impossible to maintain our culture as a business. Think Artfully and Jelly has always had a great atmosphere and (I like to think) been a pretty good place to work.

But no matter how many Slack messages and Zoom calls that you arrange, it’s just not the same – and any physical or mental health problems potentially being caused by the isolation of the Covid period are now only just starting to emerge amongst the workforce.

At the end of lockdown one (or was it two?) I, like a lot of other business owners, seriously considered whether we would need a studio again. Now I realise we need it more than ever.

Our studio’s latest iteration is to be our cultural hub, the place where we can form ideas, concentrate on who we are as a business and consider our future. We now know that we need to be physically together to confirm our identity. I may have thought that we may be able to live outside of the studio, but we certainly can’t.

I’m not suggesting a return to the pre-covid days of 5 long days a week in the studio by the way, we need to recognise the division of tasks and understand what is better done at home. This will mean more of a focus on the individual needs of each employee and a more interactive way of monitoring people, rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

There will be new challenges in managing staff, we need to realise that the next few months, all though not as difficult as the last few will hold new, complex problems that we will recognise if we are to take care of people. Flexibility will be king.

But one thing is for sure, our work family will need a home and so the studio is now more relevant and important than ever.