Led by founders Simon Dixon and Aporva Baxi, DixonBaxi is a type of studios the artistic world instinctively labels as “cool”. And on the face of it, that is not so shocking. That is the workforce, in any case, that helped reshape ITV’s on‑display screen identification, re‑energised Components One’s fan expertise, and quietly advises everybody from streaming giants to sports activities leagues on how their manufacturers ought to look, really feel and behave.
That is to not point out their rising physique of self‑initiated work. Tasks starting from their 500‑web page Remix ebook to a forthcoming paperback that lifts the lid on “the work between the work” have solely added to the sense that they function at a barely totally different frequency to the remainder of us.
However enter their London house, and also you’re greeted by one thing very totally different from the hushed temple to chill you would possibly anticipate. It feels extra like a working laboratory held collectively by notebooks, Hula Hoops and a relentless perception that design ought to really feel alive.
What it is like inside
The kitchen doubles as a crit room; lunch turns into what Aporva cheerfully calls “a cacophony of issues”, with folks chopping salads, evaluating notes on work, and primarily having a shared meal daily. It’s intentionally social, however do not get the flawed thought. The founders resist the cliché of “we’re all one massive completely happy household”.
Simon is obvious in regards to the distinction. “You wish to have an emotional reference to folks, and also you need that relationship to be truthful and sincere,” he says. “However all of us really have households. So our job as founders is to create an area the place folks really feel protected, a part of one thing, the place they’ve an actual voice and really feel like they’re rising.”
That steadiness between the collective and the person is central to how the studio runs. “You are attempting to create an entity that is almost 60 folks,” he provides, “however the individual inside that has to really feel prefer it’s their journey as nicely, not simply the studio’s.”
For Aporva, which means being relentlessly current. He spends plenty of time within the kitchen, not as a result of he is hovering, however as a result of “everybody comes up for water or tea sooner or later, and also you get a temperature of all the things”. These casual encounters is likely to be the place he spots when somebody is caught, wants a sounding board, or simply wants fun and a biscuit to reset. Management right here is as a lot about studying the room as setting a imaginative and prescient.
Partitions, campfires and making work seen
Bodily, the studio is designed to maintain the work seen and in movement. Downstairs, groups orbit throughout open desks: movement, designers, writers, technique, development. Tasks do not stay quietly on servers; they spill onto the partitions.
The purpose, Simon says, is that screens encourage linear, overloaded pondering, whereas partitions encourage serendipity. “Whenever you have a look at work on a display screen, there’s plenty of visible overload, and also you’re taking a look at issues sequentially,” he says. “Whenever you put issues on the wall, you see completely happy accidents. One thing catches your eye, soaks into your thoughts, and later it’d provide you with a unique thought.”
These partitions additionally prepare a unique sort of muscle: the tolerance for imperfection. “It creates a tradition of not being afraid to share work when it is not good,” Simon says. “There’s plenty of stress while you’re creating, and it is not proper but. When work is up and clearly unfinished, you are constructing the tolerance that it is okay. If it is not proper, we transfer to one thing else.”
That perspective is strengthened in what DixonBaxi calls “campfires”: open periods the place the work is laid out and the query isn’t “what’s flawed?” however “what have we received?” Everybody within the room is anticipated to contribute, as a result of the purpose is a shared world view: the place every challenge is heading and the way distinct it feels from the others.
For a studio working throughout all the things from broadcasters to sports activities manufacturers, that self-discipline issues. The primary impression for the viewers must be clear, memorable and match‑for‑function with out anybody standing subsequent to the work to clarify it.
What “severe play” really means
One phrase that retains surfacing right here is “severe play”. It is easy to toss that round as a slogan, however at DixonBaxi, it’s a deliberate a part of the method, with its personal time, house and guidelines. A typical instance is their inside “Encourage” section: an ignition interval the place the workforce intentionally suspends the transient and performs with the model as freely as doable.
Throughout their work with Components 1, artistic director Tassia Swulinska reveals that she coated a complete wall in 4 days, with explorations made earlier than the formal transient landed. “It was all of the issues we would do if we did not have any guidelines to comply with,” she explains.
“For example, we checked out the truth that an enormous proportion of the followers are feminine, however that is not likely represented. So we created an ‘anatomy of an excellent fan’ that wasn’t gendered. And extra broadly, we simply messed with the typography and the artwork route, in ways in which really feel extra editorial than what you often see.”
That is “severe play” in motion: structured, time‑boxed and purposeful, however emotionally open. “For those who sit down with a quick, you tense up since you really feel the clean web page,” says Simon. “For those who make issues intuitively, after you’ve got had conversations and actually thought of what the model means to totally different folks, all that technique and perception leaks into what you make.”
The method was messy, Tassia provides, but it surely unexpectedly energised the entire studio: “Different folks have been getting enthusiastic about it and began saying, ‘I wish to work on that, it appears to be like enjoyable,'” she smiles. That, in flip, adjustments the inner energy dynamic. You do not look forward to permission; you present the place you assume the model may go, and invite others into that power.
Survival intuition
Beneath all this playfulness is a powerful survival intuition. Aporva talks in regards to the studio’s historical past as a collection of eras which have demanded reinvention. “Each couple of years—really extra continuously—we modify, adapt and recharge ourselves,” he says. “We’re our personal battery cells.”
The fear, he admits, isn’t shedding pitches however changing into boring. “The concern is that we’re repeating ourselves, taking part in the identical album. So we’ve got to reinvent and disrupt ourselves, even when which means breaking our personal recipes.”
That urgency is sharpened by shifts in expertise. Aporva sees the present design panorama as a triangle: on the base, commoditised work that automation and AI will take in; within the center, template‑pushed methods that instruments will spin up from prompts; on the high, technique, storytelling and deeply human idiosyncrasy.
This stress, he believes, will push everybody upwards. Originality, craft and viewpoint will cease being “good to have” and turn into the one actual defence in opposition to a flattening of design the place “all the things appears to be like like all the things else”.
Simon’s largest concern, in the meantime, is changing into irrelevant. “Time and power are finite,” he says. “For those who spend it watching what everybody else is doing, you are not spending it on what makes you nice.” To counteract this risk, they double down on relationships and on what Simon calls “reciprocal generosity”: sharing data with the business by means of talks, open posts and mentoring.
The concept is that extra folks can entry the concepts that may in any other case keep locked in a single‑to‑one conversations. “Not everyone has to work the identical manner,” says Simon. “There are many totally different paths. Being open about that’s a part of our job.”
Unashamed optimism
For all this realism about stress, algorithms and a crowded market, although, each founders stay unashamedly optimistic about what creativity can do. “We’re in a mind-set the place creativity is a superpower for all the things,” Simon says. “It makes the world a greater place. Design is the material of all the things, not one thing that will get sprinkled on high.”
That perception reveals up within the tasks they speak about with most satisfaction, just like the work with a most cancers‑tech shopper utilizing AI to detect most cancers earlier, the place design and storytelling sit proper on the road between expertise and human influence.
From the skin, DixonBaxi’s “cool” picture might seem like a fastidiously managed aura. From the within, although, it appears to be like extra like a relentless, generally uncomfortable observe: protecting the work seen, constructing emotional intelligence, defending severe play, archiving the messy center, and selecting to, in Simon’s phrases, “change earlier than change is pressured upon you”.
For artistic professionals questioning find out how to keep assured in unsure instances, this is likely to be probably the most helpful lesson of all. The work isn’t completed… and that is exactly the place the power comes from.
