A Weekend With The Guys
“I’d like to introduce you to Rob, Mark, Mike and Alastair. Right now, they’re not members of the coquine![design] team. However, strictly spoken, neither am I yet. As a matter of fact, they are my colleagues at Ken Freivokh Design, so regardless the label, we are a team…”
Although one sometimes hears of working environments where people feel valued less than the stationary, it is a commonly known fact the most important asset of most companies isn’t the database or the technical equipment but the people. More than anything else the success of a design studio hinges on how good the team is.
“I don’t know much about football, but we all know it’s a team sport. One can collect the best players in the world and still fail if those players don’t play well together” continues Christian Leyk of coquine![design]. “I also know that a team is not solely held together by magic chemistry. And a team is not really a team if it stops being a team after 6pm.”
There is a lot of talk these days about team building and quite rightly so. It’s an important and rather complex matter involving a lot of questions such as the role of the company / employer in the development of the team. Is the boss always part of the team? How active should his role be in regards to team building efforts?
The answers will of course differ in each and every case, a studio of 5 people works differently from a big office of 50 employees. Generally we would think it’s within the company’s responsibilities to create an environment that encourages good team development. So much for the theory… at coquine![design] we prefer to look at ourselves as a group of people coming together under one roof driven by our passion for our work. We also believe that when each member of the team acts upon his responsibilities, there is no need for hierarchies. Nevertheless, the basics still apply: A team is only a team if it’s still a team after they switch off their computers after the day’s work is done.
In the future you will be able to read more about the coquine![design] team and what we are doing when we’re not busy designing. In the meantime, you can have a look at the gallery below to see what Christian, Rob, Alastair, Mike and Mark were doing last weekend in Watergate Bay in Cornwall.
“I never tried surfing before and I have to admit I’m still not convinced about that camping thing. Tent building can be an interesting challenge, though. But sunshine and beach are great, no doubt about that. And trying some kiting… Then we went creative and took this light-writing photos at night, which turned out pretty amazing I think. Obviously, we also had some good food (including waffles for breakfast), a few beers, a bit of sun burn and a lot of fun. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”
