At Strelka they will teach how to open design studios and sell ideas

“Why did we open a studio and still have not gone bankrupt after 8 months of work? Because we know how to draw up a contract and say no to a client who refuses to pay. ”

Anton Reponen and Irene Pereira have been working together for 7 years. They did projects for Wacom, Google, Sony, Microsoft, Balenciaga, USA Today, CNN, Nickelodeon, BBC, National Geographic, USA Today, Red Bull - and this is not the whole list. Last year, the guys went to Indonesia for a month and, having almost reached Kay Island, decided to open their own design studio.
Aversion, fear, anger, sadness, surprise and, finally, happiness. Probably, a person who decides to open his own business passes through all these emotions, but not everyone is ready to tell others about his failures. Anton and Irene constantly give lectures, seminars and master classes to share their experience and explain to beginning designers that you don’t need to sit and wait for your dreams to come true: “Find something that gives you joy here and now, and try to extract from this as much as possible. ”
While working in their own studio, Anton and Irene came up with several rules that are strictly followed:

• Never brainstorm for more than an hour : “When we have certain work that we will do together, we just start distributing what I can do as a designer without UX, and then Irene should work out,” Anton gives an example
• Immediately create a matrix of properties and functionals where the content of each page is carefully and accurately described: “We evaluate each property that we must create according to the importance to the user: low value, medium, high, business value, technical complexity. This allows us to understand which properties of the page will be made in the first stage, and which in the second and in the third ”
• Spend as much time on the project presentation as on design work, because the product needs to be sold: “We always record a video that reflects all the changes - so even small comments become more visible to the client”
• And one more rule from Anton - give in to the woman : “If she wants something, I agree. In fact, when we work together, we delegate authority to each other. “We never have to discuss who does what, because we clearly know what she will take and what I will take.”

This summer, the Brooklyn duo will hold two workshops at the Strelka Institute.
The first is "How to sell your idea . " Many designers are not able to quickly interest the client, relying on his brief, but Anton and Irene are sure that the tight time frame only speeds up the creative process and helps to come up with non-obvious solutions. In two days of the workshop, the founder and creative director of the New York bureau, Anton & Irene, will teach designers to respond to letters with offers, create a portfolio in such a way that there is no rubbish in it, come up with a concept in a few hours, quickly explain and communicate their thoughts, and also analyze and criticize strangers. During the first day, the workshop participants will work on the presentation and on the second day they will present it to an imaginary client.
Second workshop"UX-design for designers" will be more complex - for those who have already worked with UX. Participants will learn not only how to interpret the client’s brief and read between the lines (because the upper class does it better than the client could have imagined), but also how to create design concepts and work effectively in a group, they will understand how to correctly create a functional matrix and competently plan work on the project at the stage of the idea.
The main thing that the guys go to convey to the Moscow audience is that they need to believe in their project passionately, otherwise nothing will work.