Why Kessler Lund Publishes Every Rejected Proposal
The Copenhagen studio puts its losing pitches online, budgets included, and says it wins more work because of it.
By Tom James
Kessler Lund has published forty-one rejected proposals since 2022, each with the brief, the fee and a short note on why the client said no.
The archive started as an internal exercise. A junior designer suggested putting it on the website, and the partners agreed on the condition that clients were asked first.
In practice
Only two clients refused. The rest, the studio says, were curious to see how they had been read.
People hire you for how you think. The losing work shows that better than the winning work.
Anders Kessler, partner
