Meet our friends … Daymark
‘Meet our Friends’ series is where we take a moment to celebrate and share a little about the diverse studios who make up our DA Friends.
Today we spoke to our friends Daymark to learn more about their studio team, culture, and design philosophy. After a fresh brew on the Moccamaster, you’ll find the multidisciplinary team at Daymark diving into everything from facilitating workshops, designing concept exploration, to collaborating with Designwell’s spatial designers
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Where are you based and what shape does the Daymark team take?
We’ve been creating strategic brand identities across the Waikato and beyond for the past 6 years as Designwell’s brand team.
With a multidisciplinary team of experts in both brand and spatial fields, Designwell has brought engaging brand experiences into commercial spaces, and built brands with a rich understanding of how they function in the physical realm. With the growth we’ve experienced over the past few years we decided it was time for our brand team to fly their own flag, to empower both sides of our business to focus on what they do best and clearly communicate what they’re all about.
Proudly based in Kirikiriroa, Hamilton, we’ve had the privilege to be involved in some really important projects for our city. Kirikiriroa is seeing an exciting period of rapid development and we get a real kick out of seeing the city we love get better and better.
Can you share with us what a typical day at Daymark looks like?
With a steady stream of interesting projects the studio activities can be really varied. On any given day our team will be involved with facilitating workshops, researching and developing brand strategies, design concept exploration, collateral rollout, informal critiques, collaborating with Designwell’s spatial designers – all sorts! We’re really fortunate to have a multidisciplinary team of designers, each bringing their own special expertise in everything from illustration, photography and print to web design and motion graphics. In any case it goes without saying that we always start the day with a fresh pot of coffee on the moccamaster and a quick check of the usual design curation sites to get inspired!
Is there a project your team undertook in the last 12 months that was memorable because of its challenge? If so, what did you learn from it?
To be honest, one of the more challenging projects of the last little while has been designing and launching the Daymark brand for ourselves. Separating Designwell’s brand and spatial offers was something that we’d considered doing for some time but it can still be scary making those big changes. Our brand strategy work centres around clarifying a client’s point of difference and finding a compelling, authentic way to communicate that, so applying that process to ourselves was a valuable exercise in practising what we preach. Ultimately we’re really pleased with where the Daymark brand has landed and we’ve got a renewed appreciation for the trust our clients put in us. It’s a real privilege to be invited into people’s organisations and given the opportunity to shape their identity, and we don’t take that lightly.
What does the Daymark design process and philosophy look like?
We’ve described ourselves as a strategic branding studio because we are big believers in the importance of building a really robust brand strategy at the outset of a project. Before we even start to look at visuals we take the time to really get to know our client’s business, taking a holistic view of what they do, what drives them and what sets them apart. This strategic work forms the foundation and the brief for the execution of the brand, enabling us to then develop visuals and language that stand out and speak authentically to their customers.
We’re really passionate about designing for our clients, not our egos. Our emphasis on design strategy gives everyone involved a detailed understanding of what we’re setting out to achieve, keeping the client front and centre throughout the entire process.
Since covid there’s been a shift in the way many of us work. Can you tell us about the workplace culture at Daymark and how/if you’ve adapted your working style in the post-covid world and what tools/techniques you’ve adapted to stay connected as a team?
It’s always been super important to us that the studio is a place where people love to come to work. Collaboration is crucial not only to the work we produce but our wellbeing in the studio. We all get along really well and value a few yarns and giggles throughout the day.
We’re passionate about delivering really great work but we also respect that our designers are people with lives outside of the studio. We try to be flexible to promote a healthy work-life balance and we’re big on being family friendly. Our studio has lots of babies around at the moment, maybe we should start a creche…
Pre-covid we already had some remote staff so it wasn’t too much of an adjustment for us when everyone had to work from home. These days we’re really flexible about working from home; we use the usual digital tools to stay connected and iMacs are pretty portable. There are definitely perks to working from home but you really can’t beat being in the same space.
What recent achievements or projects is the Daymark team most proud of?
Obviously launching our very own new brand has to be at the top of the list!
But we’ve already buzzed about that here.
Daymark’s director is a basketball nut who grew up in Nelson, so we were obviously pumped when the Nelson Giants asked us to rebrand their team in honour of their 40th anniversary. We were supplied with a trove of the team’s brand material and photos from the past 40 years which provided inspiration (and a few lols) for the new brand’s development.
This project also involved a decent chunk of collateral which was really satisfying to roll out. It’s been awesome to watch our design perform well both on the court and across socials.
Where to next for Daymark, what is your team working towards for 2022/23?
Wouldn’t you like to know!
With our new brand we’re really motivated to continue refining our craft and honing in on our passion for brand strategy. We’re also having a lot of fun with some inspiring local projects which we’re excited to share when the time is right.
Lastly, where can people connect with you on socials?
https://www.instagram.com/daymarkstudio/
