DesignXY Ltd Journal reviewing our first five years, revealing our new branding, and describing how this fits into the strategy for development of the practice in the years ahead.

[Reading Time : 5 mins]

The fifth anniversary of the founding of DesignXY Ltd, on 13th November 2023, has prompted a time of reflection.  When I started my first architectural practice in 2009, it was borne of need – in a recession, with companies in all industries making sweeping cuts to staffing levels, and with deep concern regarding the economy and timeframes for recovery, I considered my options.

At a holiday home in Cornwall, with my wife and children aged six, four and one year old respectively, I thought, I prayed, and after an unsettled day or two, I felt peace descend as I made a decision - the future needed to be different to the past. I decided to start my own architectural practice.

We came home. I met with a trusted adviser and rather than tell me that we were in a recession and I was crazy, he told me that there would never be a better time – an economic downturn is apparently a great leveller, creating opportunities for new businesses.

There followed several challenging years.  Prepared in the fire of nine years of full-time and part-time study to qualify as a Chartered Architect, the long days and post-midnight finishes of running a business felt familiar.  Those were some of the most formative and stretching years of my professional life; it taught me that nothing is guaranteed, but when we’re willing to take risks, rewards can come in many forms, often in the satisfaction of the journey itself.

In 2016, I took on additional responsibilities and learned another important lesson, having merged my small business and seven years of hard work, into a larger multi-disciplinary practice. Sometimes the risk doesn’t work out. I found myself at the starting line once again at the close of 2018. I was heartbroken to have said goodbye to the team that I had built, but also the small business that every one of my friends, family members and even my children had helped to build.

Success in business, construction and in life generally, is not about achieving a consensus – it’s about alignment.  It’s important to surround ourselves with people that challenge us, but it’s equally wise to ensure that those people are aiming for the same goals. It’s not enough for the destination to be the same – it works best when the paths that we walk are parallel.

I couldn’t face the prospect of starting again on my own – I’m still immensely grateful that Vicky took a chance in founding DesignXY Ltd with me, and stayed with the business for the next sixteen months, until another world re-shaping event hit us, in the form of a virus. 

I think COVID ensured that we all took stock of what was important. We reconnected with things that we’d been missing, and we laid down things that had meant a lot to us, realising in many cases that we weren’t going to pick those things back up again. Every one of us that came out of the pandemic, did so changed by the experience.

I expected that architecture would be the last thing anyone was thinking about, but I was wrong.

People felt trapped at home and wanted to create new spaces, not knowing whether working from home was the new and permanent normal. Meanwhile, commercial clients who had been delaying work for years, suddenly had empty buildings and the realisation that being busy was no longer a reason to put-off the development that they’d been planning.

Somehow, the workload grew. I found myself increasingly busy. A few months turned into five years.

Half a decade on in this new venture, I’m grateful for many things. For a family that is eternally patient. For a colleague who was willing to take a risk. For the first client in the new business, that I met in a one-in-a-million crossing of paths and pursued me until we could work together.

I’m grateful to all of our clients – every one has taken a leap of faith in coming to DesignXY when there are many (some) other good architectural practices in Sheffield and across Yorkshire.

Much of what we consider in architecture is working towards a state of permanence. We like to think of our buildings in terms of firmness, commodity and delight.  When Vicky and I considered our branding options in 2018, we wanted to name the company and market the practice in a way that reflected our combined values. It was Vicky’s idea to incorporate the X and Y into the practice name. I thought it was clever for many reasons, primarily given our roles in drafting and the relationship with cartesian coordinates, but also our shared commitment to design at a human scale. We liked the fact that humans are made of Xs and Ys; a series of instructions that make up something bigger, more complex and greater than the sum of their parts.

For that reason, I struggled with the notion of breaking with what I felt was a strong start, but that sense has been outweighed by a few things, many of them practical considerations.  Some of the software that we use to distribute our drawings to other consultants, seems to struggle with the curves and blocks of shading in the original logo.  This has led to multiple subtle changes over the last year or so, to try and develop a brand which is consistent in every form where it appears.

There’s also a bigger picture to consider, where DesignXY may no longer be the only company that is represented by the XY logo.

We chose the word ‘Design’ because it wasn’t purely architectural; we wanted the freedom to explore other creative disciplines and while architecture remains at the heart of the practice, there was no decision to be made in terms of undertaking the re-branding ‘in-house’; from the start we intended to be seen as a practice that was design led and that sought design opportunities.

My final consideration, is that it’s been five years and for the last three and a half, I’ve been working largely independently.  The original DXY logo was a fusion of shared values; I still believe they are good and right, and that the original logo has served the practice as intended, however DesignXY is starting a new chapter, with projects of a different scale and a diversification of roles and responsibilities. 

The new DXY logo reflects the alignment of paths, as well as the notions of order, consistency and to a degree an evolution of refinement in the ‘X’ and ‘Y’ – a purity and reduction from the original form, that represents a maturity that can’t exist at the very beginning of something new.

The new DesignXY logo will be our ambassador and advocate in the exciting times ahead.

Kris