Simon Dixon: You can’t cheat hard work
INTRODUCTION
Simon is co-founder of DixonBaxi an international branding agency. As a designer, creative director and strategic thinker, Simon has explored where creativity, design, and technology overlap for well over two and a half decades.
At DixonBaxi, 'Be Brave' is their defining spirit. Driven by the enduring power of creativity, they’re designing a better future. DixonBaxi work with some of the world's most iconic companies across sports, entertainment, media, new economy, technology, and beyond.
This interview took place over video call in January 2021.
So I guess let’s start at the beginning…how did your career begin in the creative industry?
I started out when I was young. I was home-educated by my parents and started college at 16. I initially did a foundation course in art & design to experiment; illustration, print-making and photography. Eventually, I figured out that graphic design was quite a good hub to pull all those things together.
I wasn’t a very good designer initially, but I wanted to be brilliant. The dream was to be the best designer in the world! And obviously, I’m not that, but I was really into the idea and I loved it. So I worked really, really hard to improve.
“I wasn’t a very good designer initially, but I wanted to be brilliant.”
In the last year of college three of us decided to start an agency and began by doing music industry work. We traded office space in the back of a record shop, for design work.
We were very naive, inexperienced to be honest! But we had a great life doing it because we lived together, partied together and designed together. We kept that cycle going for about three and a half years. It was a lot of fun.
DixonBaxi - Regent’s Place for British Land
Do you think it’s as hard for young creatives to break into the industry now as it was then?
It’s not easy, but it is very accessible if you’ve talent. You can show it to the entire planet something you’ve designed instantly and that’s a really powerful thing.
The key to early success is figuring out what drives you. I feel your job as a creative person is to self-determine, take control, and set your own destiny. Because if you wait for someone else to do it for you, they won’t. So getting going requires focus, effort and persistence.
You also need to be very open and engage with the world. Meet people. A lot of them. Get involved. Creativity is collaborative. Don’t be self-obsessed. Think about what others need and you’ll get more back than you can imagine.
Expect to have setbacks and know it will be tricky. However, there’s never been a better time to design or a need for creativity to solve big gnarly problems. So it is out there if you persist.
How long after meeting Aporva did you start DixonBaxi?
When I moved to London a friend of mine introduced me to Aporva, and we bonded very quickly with shared taste int music and films. Particularly 2001: A Space Odyssey. We began working together and it was the best decision I’ve ever made (apart from marrying my wife!).
We worked together in London for a year and half, then New York and San Francisco. All told it was about 7 years. The company we’d been helping grow went from a very small agency to over 200 people in that time period. We went from boys to men in that time!
“We went from print designers into people who built big brands. It was both good and bad, we made a lot of mistakes, but it was a huge acceleration.”
We went from print designers into people who built big brands. It was both good and bad, we made a lot of mistakes, but it was a huge acceleration. Eventually we wanted to go back to something simpler and remove all the bullshit, so we started DixonBaxi. A more self-determined and purer agency.
We wrote a list of the things that we said we would and wouldn’t do. Framing a set of principles to guide our work. We also love the idea of always being in beta. We’re always looking at what’s happening tomorrow, rather than what happened yesterday, because the new is really exciting to us.
After almost twenty years of the agency that restlessness still fuels us.
Simon & Aporva’s list of things they would and wouldn’t do.
You’re definitely not a two-man team anymore though! How have you managed to maintain your collaborative team approach, remotely through various lockdowns?
We focus on the habits and behaviours that define the way we want to work. We want to make things that are beautiful. Make things that are smart. Make things for real people. Make things that have impact. The best way to do that is to have as diverse and open culture as you can create.
When it comes to bigger shifts like working remotely, we’ve been doing that for years on projects. So we take the things we do daily in a physical studio like Standup meetings, Spotlights, Daily Plugs, Champagne Wednesdays and Family Lunch Fridays, then replicate them digitally. It’s not quite the same, but it does work. The power comes from a shared energy to achieve something together.
DixonBaxi - AC Milan
What advice would you give to anyone, who perhaps doesn’t have that team spirit or doesn’t enjoy the environment of their current workplace?
I talk to people a lot about ‘how bad their agencies are’ and they ‘don’t do this’ or ‘don’t do that’ and I always say to them ‘either improve it...or leave’. You have a choice. You only have a certain amount of time in life, so don’t waste that doing things you don’t want to do. It’s difficult to make those decisions, to be honest with yourself and say “this isn’t working”, but as soon as you do, you’ll feel the weight come off your shoulders. Go after the thing you want or will make you happiest.
“You only have a certain amount of time in life, so don’t waste that doing things you don’t want to do.”
Building anything of value takes time and patience. It also requires hard work. Commitment. You can’t cheat it, so you have to love it. I’m a 30-year overnight success. It’s taken me three decades to get here. But every day I’ve made the choices that focuses to the thing I want to do. And I do that every day.
Between all your projects, leading a team and mentoring, do you still find the time to reflect and strategise on what you want from the future?
At my level of experience, I think it is important to give something back. You have a responsibility if you’ve been in the industry and successful to whatever degree, to be a part of the positive next steps for the industry.
I definitely do think about what is next all the time. This year is our 20th anniversary, which could be two decades of doing the same thing. But we’re a completely different company now than when we started, because we change all the time. Different people, different approaches. We get better. We develop new skills.
DixonBaxi - FOX
What are your thoughts on ‘hustle culture’ and the last-man-standing approach to hard work?
If you want to run 100m in under 10s, you have to run 100m over 10 secs thousands of times. If you want to climb Everest, you have to climb hundreds of peaks before you do. That’s time, effort and hard work, but you only do that if you want to do it. So it’s about choice.
Working for hours through guilt or because social media tells you to is stupid. Spending hours on work you don’t like is pointless. You don’t need to do it. But I don’t know anybody in this industry that hasn’t put in a lot of hours in order to get excellent. You can’t cheat it. You have to balance where you put time.
“I don’t know anybody in this industry that hasn’t put in a lot of hours in order to get excellent.”
You don’t have to work 24/7, but sometimes you might be in the groove and want to. Sometimes, you might need to take a week off. It’s all about the balance.
A lot of studios do work more hours, and it is demanding, but I think as long as you’re doing that positively and it’s regularly determined by you, then I think that’s OK. And if you choose not to, don’t feel any guilt.
When do you think you became ‘fluent in people’?
It is about being connected to the people you design for. Not clients but the actual audience for your work.
When I was very young, I was chronically shy. I’m not a very social person, so I have two Simons. Work Simon and Home Simon. I’ve trained myself to get past my natural shyness and those feelings of uncertainty. So I could be more open and hear directly from people and experience what they need from the work we create.
We design for huge audiences. Tens of millions. So we look beyond data, statistics and demographics at the attitudes and behaviours that drive people. The social, cultural and technology shifts that affect them. The ways our design interacts with their lives. It means we see them more clearly.
The same applies to when we hire, it’s the person first 100%. We can train anything, but you can’t train someone to be a good person, or to be passionate and care about what they do.
How can young creatives showcase who they are and their personality through their portfolio and online application process?
Many, many people send me portfolios. The same projects. Title card, loads of small type, picture, picture, picture, picture. And they go “My portfolio’s amazing!”, but it’s often very similar to everyone else's portfolio.
So I’m interested in the person. Why they work the way they do. Creating context to the work. It feels curated. I like it when people build narratives and tell a story about why you did the work, what you learnt, who you were designing for - I can more about them. If it says: “Here’s a logo I did!” On the same background as everyone else's and here it is again on a tote bag. It’s all the same thing! I don’t know who you are. What differentiates you.
You’re not a portfolio. You’re the way that you create your work. What you care about and the effect that has on the work for the people you create it for.
“You’re not a portfolio. You’re the way that you create your work. What you care about and the effect that has on the work for the people you create it for.”
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