The Studio That Fires Itself Every Year

Idris Calloway: This is Last Call, I'm Idris Calloway. Every January a design practice in Rotterdam closes its books, retires its name and reopens a week later as something else. Mara Okafor has been there through seven of those resets. Mara, welcome.

Mara Okafor: Thanks, Idris. Seven, if you count the one we abandoned halfway through in 2021.

Idris Calloway: Start with the mechanics. What actually happens in that week?

Mara Okafor: The company is wound down as a brand, not legally, our accountant would never forgive us. But the name goes, the website goes dark, the email signatures change. We take the first week of January off the clock. Day one, everyone writes down what they did last year that a client would actually pay for again. Day two, we read them aloud. Day three onwards, we argue.

Idris Calloway: And at the end of the week?

Mara Okafor: A new name, a new org chart and usually a new floor plan. One year we were three teams of four. The next year we were one team of twelve with a rotating lead. In 2023 we moved out of the canal office into a former bakery because we wanted a ground floor where clients could walk in.

Idris Calloway: The founder says he has stopped explaining it to new hires. What do you tell them?

Mara Okafor: That the reset protects us from our own habits. A studio that does well at something gets asked to do it forever. Our second name was known for wayfinding. By the end of that year, eighty percent of our fees were signage schedules. Good money, very dull. The reset let us say no to that without firing a client, because technically the studio they hired no longer exists.

Idris Calloway: That sounds like a loophole.

Mara Okafor: It is a loophole, and we tell clients that. Existing projects carry over with the same people on them. What does not carry over is the pitch list. Every enquiry gets re-qualified against the new name.

Idris Calloway: What does it cost?

Mara Okafor: Real money. A rename is about eleven thousand euros once you count the domain, the signage on the door, reprinting, and a week with no billing for fourteen people. And search rankings start from zero every year. We lose maybe two enquiries a month for the first quarter.

Idris Calloway: Why did the 2021 one get abandoned?

Mara Okafor: Covid. We were halfway through day three on a video call and realised nobody could tell whether they were tired of the studio or tired of the year. We kept the old name. It was the right call, and it is the only time the founder admitted the ritual could be wrong.

Idris Calloway: Do you think it works, or do you just like it?

Mara Okafor: Both. Our repeat clients are higher than they were before the resets, which I cannot fully explain. I think people like working with a team that clearly chose to be in the room.

Idris Calloway: Mara Okafor, thank you. That is Last Call.