Branding in the times of COVID-19

Reflections of our experience with the coronavirus crisis, social distancing, working from home and what lies ahead of us.

Remember when we wrote a piece at the beginning of the year where we kindly asked 2020 to slow down for a second? As we know by now, it didn’t. 2020 managed to come up with a global crisis of epic — and quite scary — proportions; the kind that doesn’t know boundaries, borders, political inclinations nor socioeconomic differences. COVID-19 came to shake us all to the very core, changing our perspective about what’s important for us as a society and making us put the breaks on our hectic lifestyles.

I’ve got to be honest, when we started hearing news about a virus coming up un the other side of the world, we didn’t think much of it. Even when one of our fellow coworkers was in China when it all started to fall apart and we were worried about him, we thought it was gonna be controlled without us being affected directly. Flash-forward to three weeks ago, everything changed. We celebrated the studio’s 9th anniversary doing a retreat in Malinalco, Edo. Mex. and as the weekend unfolded, we realized it was serious. By the time we came back, we had to pack everything up and social distancing began.

It’s been 21 days since we’ve all been working from home — as many of you are — and it has put many things in perspective. We’ve had to modify processes and tighten communication with the whole team to ensure we make up for the fact that we can’t just turn around and see what everybody is doing. We’ve discovered that without outside input, our productivity has increased; at the same time, we realized that outside input, breaks and small things like going outside to grab a cup of coffee are as important for creativity as productivity is.

We are blessed to be in a position where we’re able to keep our jobs, and new projects keep coming at the studio even in these uncertain times. We realize that not all people can afford the luxury of saving the world by staying in; we are sad to see fellow creatives and people in general, losing their jobs because of the pandemic. We all are conscious of our privilege and we encourage everyone out there in the same situation as us to feel grateful and to make the tremendous effort of complying with the official government’s prompt: Stay home, stay safe, help flatten the curve.

I’m sure many of your plans changed because of the coronavirus. I’m certain that some of your birthday plans where put to a halt, that you hate being stuck at home, that it is hard to have more time with yourselves and the people that surround us 24/7. Take these days, weeks, maybe months (?) to contemplate, to change what needs to be changed, to let go of things/situations that were holding you back, to be creative about how you want to spend this time. I believe, and I hope you do too, that we are coming out of social distancing with more strength, creative power, and knowledge, so when the next crisis arrives — believe me, it will — we will all have more tools to conquer whatever crosses our path.

Keep fighting the good fight, fellow creatives!