Vision Drives Decision. Creative Diary.

Hello there.

I thought it might be time to do another little creative diary post with some notes on what we've been up to within the Jamhot studio. It's been a while.

Last month we decided to have a 'vision day' - an adventure in working out where we wanted to take the studio, doing some dreaming about what our creative futures might hold.

Strangely enough, in 15 years running Jamhot we've never really had a vision as such - something we are aiming for, something that seems far off and outwith our reach.

I guess when we started the studio, that was a vision of sorts. The starting itself was the vision, and kicking things off gave us a momentum, and since then we've kept ourselves busy riding various sized waves as they came at us, with one creative adventure usually leading us on to the next one.

The decision 5 years ago to make our studio smaller and concentrate on making our work better was another key decision that has affected everything we undertaken since then. But again I'm not totally sure that can be counted as a vision - maybe somewhat but beyond that simple intention there was no other elements to drive us just that one guiding light.

Because of that simple decision, most of the projects we have worked on over the last 5 years have been highly strategic in nature - helping ambitious companies & brands define their own visions, then using our deas, words & designs to bring these visions to life through transformative brands & impactful campaigns.

So it's somewhat ironic that as we're been extremely busy with our clients visions we've never stopped to apply the strategic thinking we do for others to ourselves.

Getting the chance to step back from the day to day work and focus on a vision for Jamhot has been extremely exciting and energising. We've managed, for the first time in 15 years running the studio, to develop a shared & compelling vision that we want to apply to the studio over the next three years - with everything we do working towards this.

And as we know, vision drives decision, and already this work has allowed us to shape what we spend our time on. Shortly after the work we were offered a very chunky budget for a project. Initially we were very exited about the opportunity - but as we further considered the type of work we would be putting out of the studio we realised that the work, while it would bring us in a lot of money, wouldn't really help take our creative practice forward so we politely declined.

Usually, we would likely have spent ages debating this type of thing. Unsure of what to do, and might have ended up taking the money as it would have provided a lot of stability for Jamhot. But having our vision in place allowed us to quickly and easily make an informed decision, hoping that by doing so our studio would go off in another direction - with the road of travel currently unknown.

It feels exciting to be starting to think a bit more long term, with a vision that is inspired by dreams of the future rather than based in the reality of the present.

So although 15 years is a decent amount of time to be running the studio, we honestly feel like we're now just getting started - ready to step out, stand out and create the work of our lives.

Never be the same.