INDUSTRIAL DESIGN: most design agencies are quietly hoping you don’t notice

When you hire a design agency, the senior person who wins your project is almost never the one who does the work. You get sold by the founder, principal, or creative director with twenty years of judgment. Then you sign the agreement, the project moves into the machine, and the work gets shuffled down the chain.

You bought senior judgment. What you got was the guy down the hall.

That is how products drift. The person who sold the vision is back to selling the next project.

I built Crafted by as the agency I couldn’t find. No heavy overhead. No large staff to keep busy. No specialties to force the project into because that is who happens to be on payroll.

I stay directly involved, and when a project needs more hands, I bring in senior resources who can carry judgment on their own.

I turn things down. That is the point.