Alas! Smith & Milton: How Not to Run a Design Company

by Nick Asbury

One of the world's most successful design firms reveals its inner workings in this look at the business of being creative. Written by the owner of a 25-year-old company that at times has both thrived and barely survived, each chapter addresses a different challenge in running a design firm, such as how to bring order to a creative business without spoiling the fun, manage and motivate creative people, and make money out of a design (and still enjoy it). Interviews with 25 of the company's past and present staff members that include luminaries from the design world, groundbreaking entrepreneurs, and big-hitting financial marketers provide a lively, revealing, and opinionated account of the company and industry's colorful history. Honest, informative, and entertaining, this guide to running a design firm does not claim to have all of the answers, but rather seeks to pass on the observations, lessons, and cautionary tales that only an experienced―and ultimately successful―business such as Smith & Milton could share.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2006

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully designed book, but ugh, what horrible and disgusting individuals you are Smith and Milton. Commissioning a book then then using financials chicanery to refuse to pay for it. Stay classy....