Welcome to Our Design Studio, Where You’ll Never See the Light of Day But You Can Bring

Your Dog

Welcome! We’re so pumped you’re joining us as our new Social Media Community Manager. We love our brand and we love getting our brand out there. Do you have a dog? No? You should get one! Because you can bring your dog into this office. I know, right? Everyone loves dogs. Don’t they?

You’ve probably already noticed that we’re big fans of posting photos of our studio dogs. Dogs in the conference rooms, dogs wearing hats and outfits, dogs matching the color of our rugs or furniture—you know, real Instagram-friendly stuff.

It’s our way of showing the world that, hey, we’re super into dogs, we’re really casual, and we’re really cool. We have work-life balance because our dogs can roam around here. Who can be unhappy when there are dogs around? No one, obviously. So as a starting point I’d encourage you to jump right in and start taking pictures of our dogs and posting them. Our favorite comments on posts are “I want to work there!” and “You guys are so lucky!” or “Hire me PLEEEZ” because of course we love working here AND we think it’s fun.

Just FYI, what we want to steer away from is any appearance that we work around the clock. Because we do, in fact, work around the clock. So no posts at midnight when everyone’s simultaneously ashen and greasy while also being super angry. Also, you’ll see some crying. There’s no getting around that. So, you know, treat others the way you’d want to be treated, i.e. by not posting photos of them locked in a bathroom stall sobbing. None of that. Also, those late nights are usually when the dogs that are still here start pissing and crapping in corners and near potted plants because no one has time to take them outside. So 1) watch your step and 2) obviously don’t post any of that. That’s not in keeping with our brand.

If you’re thinking tweets, keep them upbeat and clever. But whatever you do, don’t start an “OH at the studio” account. Because what’s overheard is, quite frankly, a lot of bitching. A lot of pom-pom hat wearing four eyes complaining about how this isn’t “what they fucking signed up for.” My motto is “On Instagram they can’t hear you scream.” Unless you post videos. Don’t ever post videos.

I think one thing that gets overlooked a lot is what a family friendly workplace we are. Sometimes we have kids AND dogs in the studio. So, a post with a kid and dog in it? Gold. What we don’t want to show is moms or dads working while their kids lay face down on the ground blubbering because they want to go home or they’re hungry and all we have here are artisanal potato chips, espresso, and Kombucha. That scenario happens a minimum of once a week. It’s tedious for everyone because although everyone loves dogs, not everyone loves kids. You’ll see.

Some other thoughts about getting across how creative, carefree, and young we are: employees wearing matching outfits (it happens all the time) or on the rare occasions we’re outside, it’s great to tag along and get some shots of us just laughing and enjoying each other’s company or drinking heavily. There’s a lot of drinking. Granted, 90% of the time anyone’s outside it’s to take a walk and “cool down” so treat the situation as you would if you were a National Geographic photographer on the Serengeti: always alert, no direct eye contact, watch your back, get ready to run.

Just a quick word on our creatives. You’ll notice that several of the designers have stacks and stacks of design books and publications on their desks, their Paul Rands, their Vignellis, and so on. This is great to capture. It makes the designers feel good because it allows them to think that one day they’ll also design an airline logo or redesign a subway wayfinding system or create timeless animated movie credits when in fact we all know that they’ll mostly be creating shitty animations in Keynote that only sales managers in the Midwest will see, and more importantly, not even give half a fuck about.

We don’t have many writers here, I mean, we’re a design studio. Hello. Capture what you can there. Obviously there’s not much to work with. Someone tapping away on their laptop while wearing headphones and looking all sullen and unmatching? Not that cool and very off-brand. You may notice that they’ll approach you regarding your captions and make some suggestions about edits. Just ignore them, everyone else does.

Last point for now, sometimes our employees will bake cupcakes or cookies and bring those in to share. This is great because it shows that our employees have the time to bake when in reality most of them bake for therapeutic reasons and to avoid screaming into their pillows as they fall asleep. I know because one of them told me. That’s off the record of course. Just focus on the cupcakes.

If you have any questions just let me know. You can text me. I’ll text you back something funny and you can post it! And don’t forget to check your shoes.