I had been following a design studio in CDMX on Instagram for almost a year before I was brave enough to write to them.
Their client work in Roma kept appearing in my feed, and every time it did I saved the post, took a screenshot, and thought "someday". I liked how simple they kept everything, and the way they used type on printed signs and installations. It was the kind of studio where I wanted to learn. I had already sent cold messages to two other studios in the city and neither one answered, so I knew that a normal "I love your work, here is my portfolio" message was not going to work. I spent one afternoon reading their recent open briefs and chose the one I felt most sure about. I did not write a long cover message. Instead I made three quick sketches with ideas for that brief, rough and not finished, and sent them to the founder in a short DM of four sentences. He answered the same day. I read the notification twice before I believed it was real. He invited me to visit the studio in person, at their space in Roma Norte. The visit went well, and they offered me a trial week and paid me their full day rate for it. Many studios ask you to work that week for free. That mattered to me. The trial week was hard. They put me on ↓