In today's creative industry, the question of what constitutes a "studio" has become increasingly complex, revealing ongoing tensions around professional identity, ambition, and scale. As remote work reshapes traditional business models and solo practitioners compete with established agencies, designers are grappling with fundamental questions about how to present themselves and structure their practices.
The terminology itself has evolved significantly. Where "studio" once implied a physical office, diverse full-time staff, and clear hierarchical structure, today's studios often operate without any of these traditional markers. Many function as loose networks of collaborators spread across time zones, with no permanent workspace or stable team of designers waiting in the wings.
Designer Elizabeth Goodspeed, who operates her own S-Corporation structure, exemplifies the modern complexity of independent practice. Like many American designers, she finds it more advantageous to operate as a business entity rather than as an individual, despite working alone. This approach allows her to pay herself a salary while also taking draws from business income as a shareholder, making her simultaneously her own employee, boss, and investor.
The naming decision represents one of the most revealing aspects of this identity crisis. Designer Meredith Hattam, who worked for Condé Nast and The New Yorker from 2017 to 2023 before moving to Berlin and eventually starting her own practice, chose to name her studio "A Present Force" rather than using her own name. The decision reflects broader industry dynamics, particularly around gender representation in design leadership.
"If any of my work became known, I'd rather it be known under a name I thought hard about and that meant something," Hattam explains. Her boyfriend, who distributes cheese and wine, pointed out that his business isn't called "Alessandro sells cheese," raising the question of why design practices should be different.
The name "A Present Force" serves multiple purposes. It references the statistic that women make up less than 40 percent of design leadership despite comprising 70 percent of design students. Most of Hattam's collaborators are women, making the name a subtle provocation about female designers' power in the industry. Additionally, choosing a non-personal name creates room for future growth beyond herself.
This approach contrasts with Finnish designer Lotta Nieminen's journey. After building nearly a decade of experience and working with clients like Bulgari, Marimekko, Liberty, and Herman Miller, she operated simply as "Lotta Nieminen" from 2012 to 2021. However, as her practice evolved and she began taking on larger, more complex projects, she found the personal branding insufficient.
"Before I added studio, I got a lot more inquiries for in-house gigs, which wasn't something I was looking for or even able to do, since I was running my own practice full-time," Nieminen recalls. Adding "Studio" to become "(Studio) Lotta Nieminen" made her circumstances more legible to potential clients, though she initially worried it might come off as "a scam to make myself sound bigger."
Transparency has become crucial for these micro-studios. Both Hattam and Nieminen emphasize ensuring clients understand exactly what they're getting. Hattam describes her practice as "a collective model run by one creative director," meaning she works directly with clients while collaborating with a network of specialists as needed. Nieminen prefers never to use the "all-powerful we" to avoid artificially inflating her operation.
This honesty stands in stark contrast to what Goodspeed calls "the hustle-bro model" seen on LinkedIn and other platforms, where designers exaggerate their studio headcount. However, misunderstandings still occur. One recent client of Hattam's assumed she had a full team of developers on standby and expected an instant buildout, requiring clarification about her actual capacity and process.
The gender dimension of studio naming and presentation reveals deeper industry patterns. Research supports the idea that women are more likely to question their professional legitimacy. A 2024 Harvard Business School study found that women apply to fewer competitive, high-paying roles because they worry about not meeting every qualification, while men tend to apply even when they fall short. Similarly, a 2018 LinkedIn report showed women apply to 20 percent fewer jobs than men despite similar job-search activity.
Designer Meredith Hattam reflects on these dynamics: "There's definitely a confidence factor where I think, would a man even be asking himself the question, 'Should I call myself a studio?'" This self-questioning, while potentially rooted in internalized sexism, can also provide protection against external prejudice by allowing practices to be read as collective, gender-neutral output rather than the work of a single woman.
Not all designers embrace the studio model, however. Abby Muir, who co-ran a digital studio called The Couch from 2017 to 2019, deliberately chose to work under her own name after the collective closed. Despite designing retail environments, leading branding projects for Fortune 500 companies, and working across naming, web, and art direction, she prefers to remain "just Abby."
"I think going by my own name underscores the fact that I'm a human," Muir explains. "Obviously I'm still participating big time in capitalism, and so any way that I can remind myself and the people around me that, at the end of the day, we're all just a bunch of people, is a good thing." She notes that clients tend to extend more grace to individuals than to entities – a person can have a sick day, but a business cannot.
Muir's approach emphasizes the personal relationship aspect of design work. As an extrovert, she sees building rapport with founders and collaborators as one of the most rewarding parts of her practice. Her website reflects this philosophy, featuring mostly plain text with a list of clients, background information, and a running catalog of her current interests, from Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series to collecting Y2K-era Miu Miu and Dior.
The strategic implications of naming choices extend beyond personal preference. Studio names can help win bigger projects, clients, and budgets, while also providing authority over process. As one designer notes, "You get to declare 'this is how we work' – my favorite approach: I only do one revision round – instead of absorbing whatever structure a client brings with them."
However, being perceived as too large can have downsides. Studios might be less likely to collaborate with practices they view as competitors rather than potential partners. An individual designer can be seen as a mercenary; a studio represents a rival. The nimbleness associated with individuals can vanish once something is formalized as a studio.
The emotional and practical stakes of these decisions vary significantly. Designer Elana Schlenker, whose "Studio Elana Schlenker" functions as an unofficial partnership with frequent collaborator Jordi Ng, grapples with the fairness of having someone work under her name despite equal collaboration. "I get really hung up on – is that fair? Is it dishonest?" she says. "I know it's just a crisis of semantics, but I think about it all the time."
The personal costs of being the public face of a practice also factor into these decisions. Schlenker discussed the emotional calculus of taking maternity leave while being her business's public face: "Am I gonna dissuade a cool project from coming in because someone sees, 'she's on leave,' even though I'm only out for a couple months?" The closeness that wins work also increases exposure and can erode separation between professional responsibility and personal availability.
Currently, many designers report that clients are actively seeking alternatives to traditional studios. In a challenging economy, being small signals nimbleness and flexibility to work on projects in different ways and at different scales. Multiple clients have explicitly told Goodspeed they reached out to her as a person rather than a studio because they're "burnt out on studios," viewing independents as talent without unnecessary overhead.
Ultimately, the choice between studio and individual branding reflects different approaches to professional positioning. A studio functions like a castle – clients must cross the moat and agree to follow the house rules, granting the proprietor the authority to establish processes and philosophies. Working under one's own name is more like being a pilgrim on a journey, sacrificing order for variety and flexibility. As the industry continues to evolve, designers are discovering that sometimes the ideal future they're working toward is actually something they already are.
