How We Met Matters!

A New form of Client Relationship that Opens

Up New Opportunities and Fosters Innovation

At Butterflies & Hurricanes we have been developing a new form of client relationship that has numerous financial benefits, enables innovation and brings more of the joy of service and purpose into our work.

Our logo on a label from Tierra Verde, with the our web address and the text, “Drawn and written by the girls at Butterflies & Hurricanes.”

The basis for this new type of relationship is shared values and shared purpose, which brings greater responsibility, and allows risk to be shared.

Shared Purpose: More and more we are skipping the traditional pitching process and connecting with clients because we share similar values and purpose. We connect with new clients through organisations such as Slušná Firma, or B Corp, which require their members to go through a rigorous evaluation process, which means we start from a position of mutual trust and shared purpose.

Shared Responsibility: There is always risk involved when transitioning to a new business model, including sustainability. This new relationship motivates designe agencies to have long-term involvement and increased responsibility because we share the risk with the client.

Shared Opportunities: We have found that non-competition is often a better move, and that there is often much more benefit in sharing ideas and methods than not. An opportunity for a client-partner opens new opportunities for us, and vice versa.

(Above) Our logo on a label from Tierra Verde, with the our web address and the text, “We thank the Butterflies & Hurricanes studio for the design.”

There are numerous benefits to this new type of relationship:

Less Waste: In the traditional pitching process many hours of work, creativity and a lot of resources are spent on ideas and presentations that ultimately go unused. The result of stepping out of the process is that both sides save time and money.

More Fair: Much of the work done in a pitch often goes unpaid, which is one-sided and unfair to design studios.

Less conflict: When you have a relationship based on purpose, values and shared interest, decisions are often much easier because they are guided by the shared purpose, and less likely to be based on ego. This saves time and energy, and opens up creativity.

Increased innovation: In a cooperative relationship the client and the studio are co-evolving which creates an incentive to share knowledge, ideas and discoveries, which opens the door to innovation. And less conflict is conducive to innovation.

Networking: This new type of relationship leads to new opportunities, with the design studio finding new partners and outlets for the client, and the client recommending the studio to others in the purpose-driven business community.

(Above) The Butterflies & Hurricanes logo on packages from Tierra Verde, with the our web address and the text, “We thank Butterflies & Hurricanes for the design.” (Below) Our page on the Slušná Firma site.