• Design

Design

Sam Szabla and his team are somehow different from all the others,he and his team are more than just an office full of graphic artists, interior designers, huge screens, cooler-than-you-attitude, torn jeans with eccentric facial hair and unfeasible glasses . lets face it they've got experience and everything. No, we think what sets them apart is the other stuff: not so much what they have learnt as what they are: empathetic, imaginative, approachable.humble.

Now when you hear Sam Szabla repeat the mantra that he listens to his clients, do feel free to look deep into his eyes or that of his team. Measure there pulse. Check there palms for sweat if you must. Because it's all true: They actually mean it. Of course it takes time - to know a business and understand what makes it tick. But it's worth the wait. It's how Sam Szabla and his chosen few get to surprise there clients, to go that bit further. Listening properly means not imposing outcomes; they suggest options instead, and plenty of them. And a business will listen to options if they come from an agency considered a partner in a joint endeavor. That's not a status you achieve if you only know design, you need to understand people, too.

But once a client does see you as a partner, the benefits of mutual trust flow. The client relaxes and - confident they have the best help available - wastes far less time on project-managing and non-specific fretting. They get to relax, too, which means freedom to challenge and be honest, to suggest high-quality design solutions which transform businesses and their reputations. Be ready for honest answers.

Perhaps what should not need to be add - but will anyway - that working in the Miami Design District matters. They choose to be there. They love the life and - although the provable science might elude them - Sam Szabla has no doubt that being here gives his work a dimension it would lack were we based in, say, Fort Lauderdale or Naples. (No disrespect to either, obviously.)