Dive a little deeper into our new strategic vision for Duties and our journey into the world of ventures and creative capital. (This article originally appeared in Norwegian on Kreativt Forum, which you can find after the English version below).

As three designers with backgrounds spanning various creative disciplines, we felt it was time to focus our efforts and double-down on our core offering: developing unique visual identities for clients who dare to stand out. In addition, we wanted to actively seek new working partnerships with ambitious founders and future-forward companies through the exchange of creative capital.

From Broad to Focused

This latest transformation, led by studio owners Erling Aarønæs, Paul Conley, and André Folkedal, is based on a strategic and conceptual foundation that aims to challenge the norm.

"Our own rebranding marks a new era for Duties. Our new identity plays on a larger underlying design universe, a utilitarian direction that underpins our approach to functional design," explains Conley.

An important part of Duties' rebranding has been to narrow and sharpen the approach regarding design and deliverables.

"We realised that our previous identity and our service offering was too broad and generalised. We wanted to make it easier for clients to understand exactly what we offer and choose us as partners. Therefore, we have chosen to significantly narrow our service offering, while at the same time increasing our relevance in the process ," explains Folkedal.

Partnerships with Venture Capital Firms and Startups

Duties is now aiming to attract future-forward businesses that seek something truly unique.

"Our ambition is to develop strong brands for ambitious clients who want to gain a solid foothold in the market," says Aarønæs.

With over three decades of combined experience, Duties' interdisciplinary team unites their passion for good design, new technology, and a solid working methodology to achieve this goal for their clients. The design studio has now introduced an innovative approach for collaborating with venture capital firms and startups, a model that is seemingly unique in the Norwegian design industry.

"We want to help these companies reduce the immediate costs associated with engaging an agency or hiring internal creative teams. We achieve this by exchanging bespoke design solutions for equity" explains Folkedal.

This exchange of creative capital allows entrepreneurs to leverage the expertise of a multidisciplinary design team from an early stage, contributing to creating concrete results in the critical startup phase—at a fraction of the cost.

Visit our ventures page here to learn more about the benefits of our partnership models and creative capital offering.