In design, is it one’s best interest to think client-side, first, then proceed on a personal portfolio afterwards? Or to keep on with an original soul, a fresh take on styles and visual philosophies, while trying to make a quick buck.
For Toronto-based Marlo Onilla who runs Biography, the answer can be found somewhere in the middle — with an emphasis on sourcing fresh faces, adding to the whole, using an open-doors policy of pulling in creatives and designers; a boutique approach to the question and industry of design.
Why focus on the same ladder-down distribution in a company of creatives when the communal perspective provides a more equal stake for designers?
We got to talk with Marlo about his growing influences, both in his collegiate years and when he first started getting employed, as to what really influenced his boutique approach. From what he looks for, ideals of a working creative, and what’s kept him focused and open-minded.
What and who is Biography? What was the process of building your career in graphic design up to this point?
My name is Marlo Onilla. I am the principal and creative director at Biography. Biography is a design company that specializes in many things, not just one. We do a lot of experimental stuff, tactile things, and the list goes on. But basically, we’re a small boutique agency that deals with graphic design—much to my dislike of the phrase as it means a lot of different things.
As designers, we wear a lot of hats because there’s a lot of branches that graphic design can flow into such as industrial, architectural, interior— a lot of other industries can influence what we do.
We’ve reached our 25th year as a design company, but we’ve remained firm in always staying small. Although we reached being big at one point, it didn’t last because I knew that wasn’t the goal. The goal instead shifted to keeping a small boutique—a small company. Being small allows you to stay and feel more involved. You get your hands dirty all the time, unlike in a big company where projects get passed around. In that environment, tension from the size and commitment can make a difference. With a smaller company, everybody gets to work on that one project, and it gets more specialized, gets more custom-made. To me, being a boutique agency attracts better clients.
Prior to this interview, you mentioned “avoid the obvious”, what do you mean by it?
Experimentation is key. I once did a huge installation as part of a project, which was something I had never done before, and was praised for it in the end. There was a lot of uncertainty, lots of experimentation throughout the process. Since I didn’t know how to quote at the time, I ended up under-charging for my service. The project turned out great, though I still think that if we didn’t have that initial period of playing around with ideas, I’m not sure if the project would have the same conclusion.
What happened had happened because I learned to adapt. “Avoid the obvious,” — don’t head for the most straightforward thing, sometimes. Don’t be predictable, don’t seek the same formula each and every time; learning to sit with your own discomfort and shaky direction. Predictability becomes generic, and a lot of generic things end up as trends. And of course, trends are one step away from being tacky.
It used to be that I would find work because I knew I could handle the simplest jobs, easy turnover, call it in and get paid. In the beginning, that’s how it usually is. But over time, I’ve learned that the value in adding more to your craft and being more experimental with the process has enhanced the value of work, the products of hard work. Sure, sometimes it means having to lose out on steady, reliable, and somewhat predictable work, but what you lose out of the number of gigs, you gain in the value, the creative energy, and the better directions from the creatives and designers you can meet in the future. Avoiding the obvious is all about inviting opportunity and that’s what Biography stands for.
Images by John Crawford
You have been working in design and running Biography for 25 years now, what do you think made you and your work relevant all these years?
Above all, new and budding artists need flexibility; whether it’s in the roster of skillsets, versatility with styles, or new faces. The longer you work in this business, the more you realize there are certain things you have to do to stay alive.
Where other companies can fall short is that as they get older, they do more and more of the same thing, which makes them predictable. They miss to stay relevant. That’s a question that comes in running a company as you get older: how can we compete with the younger generations of designers coming out?
Age can never replace experience, even as an advantage. I will admit, that’s something I look at when getting new designers, I always look for the younger ones. The combination of my experience and what the new generation can bring is a way to stay relevant in terms of work.
Corporations tend to go against having big companies. Why opt for design firms with fifty people, when they could opt for five—and for what’s roughly the same budget, you know? Bigger means more money going into the overhead. It means it goes to the founder that’s not even in the studio, vacationing somewhere, getting paid to drink at the beach.
Now don’t get me wrong, no problem with that, but it’s the corporations that notice. It used to be like you’d get a $2M advance for photography gigs and Nike comes through with no direction, no heading, total trust to the artist. Then, stock photography comes along, which influences clients these days to pay so much less, because it’s become so much easier to look for cheaper, stock alternatives — basically for nothing.
Can you share to us your process when working on projects at Biography?
With a design firm, the business practices of old managerial habits are still there. Boutiques though? They benefit from being a smaller firm. They give a better handle on the kind of work because of their closeness with it.
As I mentioned, I’ve never chased money, and that’s because the largest projects of my work in the past 25 years all came from referrals. At the end of the day those people come back to you, spread the word, and so on. At the end of the day, it worked because they want me to be an extension of what they’re doing — they trust and work with my style.
I never take anything that I know is just ‘a job,’ where at the end of it I get paid, and that’s it. That’s where my edge comes from, so this means that these new projects always have to be different to me, somehow.
I’m fortunate to have a job that I love, how many can really say that? Biography has survived because I never sold my vision, even when I struggled. Everything’s a reflection. Everything’s an opportunity to avoid the obvious.
When meeting new designers, what do you look for?
With graphic design, it’s kind of tricky.
It was after dropping a three-year college course in graphics design and getting a full-time designing job that I started to realize that it took more than academics to really get out there — it meant getting things done, starting that portfolio, getting seen as soon as possible. By the time my peers graduate, I knew they were going to be at a disadvantage in finding work. Meanwhile, I would have already made 2 years in the industry, all my work printed and executed.
Creativity and design are a little bit harder to get around these days, because of social media — Instagram, Pinterest, and what not. Not to say that it’s not ‘real’ creativity, but there’s that difference, right? Usually, it’s because of how easy it is to access these things, how easy it is to pick up the skills after looking in the Internet. Everyone’s a designer, everyone’s an artist; but one fundamental difference from the artists I’m seeing now and from before is passion, where it’s a little bit harder to find now.
While there are a few different factors, I think it comes down to expensive rent that makes passion above all else take a second seat. This is the case in Toronto, where a lot of the designers I meet have to share an apartment with 2 or 3 other people in the city, all while focusing on rent and bills. After that, and with what corporations try to do through standard 9-to-5 job formats, the commitment and the passion is more difficult to realize — I mean, can you still be creative? It just isn’t the same.
What should modern agencies focus on more often?
Freedom. You want more access and freedom with the designers and artists you assign to projects. It’s very hard sometimes, with projects that require a wide range of ideas, creativity of different directions and such, that the only heads you have around are the ones kept on salary. If you’re so used to the creativity of your staff, it’s healthier to branch outside sometimes, look for wilder stuff you know? Something not just locked to your own office.
When you’ve fallen and gotten used to one thing, it can be easy to fall in it, and get caught in that trap. Title goes here, heading goes there, and all of that. It doesn’t matter that the same designer has done similar projects, there isn’t that attention to detail if you’re just following with what you’ve seen before.
If you always look for what’s average, you’re always going to do what’s expected. At the end of the day, for small and big companies, it all evens out — difference is that bigger companies need a huge overhead, and smaller companies don’t. Bigger companies can have more of the work spread throughout the teams while small companies have no choice but to use their regularized employees. If there was a way to take revolving creatives down a circuit, that would be something else, you know?
For the budding design agency founder, what are some things you wish you learned sooner?
Things were so much different ten years ago. I guess I would have wanted to focus on how creativity shares such a tight connection with salary. I don’t work with full-time staff, for instance — I had designers that were on salary before. Nowadays, I work with specific designers as contractors or freelancers because it works better in my case. Before, it used to be that clients and project managers looked to your design expertise with a direction to take, and that worked; they didn’t have a set of pegs to follow, or industry standards to reference. The fact that designers need good pay above everything else really affected their design, eye for taste, and all that stuff. It can do bad things for the creative spirit.
In a way, having designers on a salary all of a sudden makes the work more predictable, as opposed to getting a gig, a client, can work with different designers tailored to their needs. With someone in full-time salary you will only rely on that person. Different clients may need a certain aesthetic or style that may be suited with different designers but you have no choice but to use in-house because they’re full-time staff.
What I tend to do now is to hire specific designers for specific projects — it’s what made Biography what it is now. A constant flow of creatives, each with something new to bring to the table solves things easily.
What’s the best way of getting clients on board with unconventional designs?
Resonate with the people and not just with the company. That’s something that you learn through experience and not in school, too. Innovation, stick-to-itiveness — you need to have to want it, as if you were born for it. Wanting it and needing it are absolutely not the same.
It also depends on who the clients are, how they know you. If you’ve marketed yourself as, or have developed a reputation for, being out of the box, being really inventive with your work, then that’s what they’ll expect. It’s different for different people — for which clients you get, they have to resonate with what you do.
As an example, we’re basing out the website to only have five case studies, each of which covers everything Biography’s about. The idea here is that one does real estate, one for hospitality, more for tech, for finance, or whatever; these studies showcased on the website are unique and different. With this launched, and if I’m talking with a client that’s expressed interest in one of the five case studies, I already know I want to have them on. They got with my program.
All clients want something that’s “cool,” or “edgy,” even “out of this world.” They all want it. But after that, it all boils down to the company and designers. I was once with a client who needed a logo done. Took me two days, and when I was done with it, he told me: “Marlo, I’ve worked with a lot of designers through the years, but this only took you two days.”
I corrected him saying, “Actually, you paid me for the two days, and the 25 years I’ve been studying design.” And that was that.
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