PM—Hi Jarmaine, how are you doing?

JS—Hey Damien! I’m going pretty good - No major complaints, enjoying a sense of normal in Sydney. As I’m sure you are in Melbourne!

PM—What tunes are you currently bumping in the studio?

JS—Offft, to be honest, I mix it up most days. I feel like my mood is driven through the weather to be honest! I’ve been listening to a lot of stuff from Hyperdub (record label) more specifically getting back into Burial and Kode9. So I guess at the moment that earlier electronic bass sound that was popular during the back of the 2000s/early 2010s.

PM—What's your preference: Spotify or playing dusty old records?

JS—Oh at home it’s always records, I have quite a big record collection and half of them ended up in storage or with mates but the rotation at home is pretty solid. At work it’s always Spotify, I got into doing Spotify playlists during covid through the studio which was a nice way to get my mates involved who have good taste in music/work around music/dj. But I’ve started to run music videos on the second screen as it’s been a funny inspo source with how typography and layouts appear.

PM—How did SCCO Studio come to life?

JS—To be honest, it was mostly because I couldn’t get a job anywhere. Back in 2014/15 IG wasn’t a massive source for exposure with clients and collaborations. So you had to really look hard across job boards, recommendations and internships. I worked at Universal Music for a few years, give or take, and it wasn’t for me. I decided to try and get a proper design job, but it was just insanely hard and constantly got rejected over and over again. That pushed me to just give it a crack and freelance, slowly things came together but generally tough. I never had any agency or studio experience in how to do anything from invoicing/proposals/briefs/concepts etc. Just kind of self-taught myself and reached out to similar people who were in the same position as me.

PM—Describe your studio's purpose in one line.

JS—To challenge the status quo.

PM—How many make up your studio? And who does what?

JS—At the moment it’s just me. Last year it was two in Sydney and Jon who is the adopted freelancer who does all the development work that needs to be done. So myself, Eugenié who was the strategist/brand lead/kept my design in line. We had a great relationship as we were close friends and she ended up working more and more to the point where I couldn’t get rid of her. She still works with us on the bigger jobs as she relocated back home to Paris.

PM—How do you define good culture in your studio? Anything you do that works well?

JS—I think it starts with really if you get along. I’ve been picky in finding the right fit with designers/strategists for the studio. Considering it’s always a small and agile make-up, whoever is the current makeup generally plays with all the toys. So having someone that shares the same vibe is pretty important and I think the ‘culture’ kind of is a bi-product of that. I’m generally a big believer in if you can enjoy the time outside of work with someone who spend time with in the work setting it will probably break down a few walls in creating a good space to work in.

PM—We all f*ck up at work at some stage. Can you recall making any mistakes and the outcome?

JS—Mate seriously there has been so many, kind of the beauty of learning on the fly. One that stands out is probably not getting a bulletproof T&C’s and contract done as I got absolutely rinsed by a client who decided to refuse to pay a large remaining budget as they just decided they didn’t want what they wanted at the end of the project. Long story short the lack of a strong contract, essentially took me into the space of solicitors and got a strong education in the dynamic of trying to play hardball with someone who has way more money than the studio.

PM—If a fire broke out in the studio, what would be the first thing you would grab and run?

JS—Probably the mac mini, just rip and run.

PM—Describe the messiest night out with the team, any funny incidents?

JS—HAHA! Mate there has been many merry nights. Eugenié and myself loved to indulge in the restaurants we worked with across the years. Like I said because we had a good friendship so our nights out would end up somewhere above our pay grade enjoying life.

PM—What is one lesson you've learnt running a design studio?

JS—Probably the fact that we all try and compare ourselves with other designers/studios which is a very dangerous thought. I learnt that reaching out is great to pick brains and understand how situations can be worked but I’m a big believer in embracing a sense of failure as it’s the way I’ve understood what works and doesn’t for me personally and how the studio can work.

PM—Pizza or Pasta?

JS—Pasta. No question.

PM—What are your thoughts on making mad money doing shit you hate vs building a path to what you love doing but not getting paid that much?

JS—I’ve gone both ways with this, about 4 years ago we had a team of 4 and I realised we were saying yes to majority of stuff that came through the doors, purely to keep the lights on. When looking through the work we took over a course of a year, there was nothing we were proud of showing as most the clients were the ones that wanted pretty direct delivery. So we never had the chance to enjoy design and it made the exchange become a very transactional situation. Yes, there is definitely money to be made in the space of big corporate clients, but it depends on your situation. It was the main reason I stripped everything back to just myself to work on projects I thought would allow me to enjoy and flex my thinking/creativity.

I do believe that you attract the work you put out there, the trust you want with clients is only as strong as your previous work. I personally feel that the work we get is based off what we put out, and that doesn’t mean you can’t work both sides of the coin but I do think it’s a tightrope to dance with being proud and being ‘rich’ from design.

PM—Can you share some tips you would tell a designer starting their design studio?

JS—Be yourself. Be confident and be daring. I think if you can enable someone to think wide and conceptually that’s a better position than limiting ones thinking and trying to build from there. I love thinking insanely wild and revisiting the brief as it almost creates a pool of thoughts and ideas to go with.

PM—A lot of designers always ask me how do I find new work. What have you found works for SCCO?

JS—To be honest I still don’t know the answer to this question. Mix of recommendations, networking through previous clients and I guess the devil - Instagram.

PM—What would it be if you could only have one app on your phone?

JS—F*ck, either IG or the NBA app. Sometimes I wish IG didn’t exist lol.

PM—Do you have a particular process when approaching a new project?

JS—We have various processes - I’ve learnt over the last couple years that a process should suit how you work and also fitting to the brief at hand. I have 3 different versions of the same process and they are essentially broken into rough budget spaces. I think it’s ideal to have a process that is the same but obviously budget is going to dictate how much time you get to put towards a job. So we started to look at how can we get the best outcome with using our process with small gigs right through to gigs that take over a year to complete.

PM—Who would it be if you had the chance to rebrand any company?

JS—I’m going to be modest, my dream has been to rebrand a basketball or football player. But I would say at the moment a record label like Hyperdub, R&S records (even though they don’t need it) - Something along that line of music.

PM—What interests do you have outside the industry?

JS—Up until recently I was playing basketball two times a week, which ended with a major tear in my hamstring. Something I’ve kept up since 14 playing a couple/few times a week for over 20 years. I am a big sport fan believe it or not so between the NBA and Football I always have a game on the tv - I love making mixes and putting together music as that was a bit of a past aspect of my life with having radio shows. But at the moment I’ve been trying to get myself into painting more.

PM—I know you like your football. Who had more swag, Maradonna or Roberto Baggio?

JS—Baggio every day of the week.

PM—What would you tell 18-year-old Jarmaine if you could go back in time and start over?

JS—Buy Bitcoin as soon as it gets released.

PM—Yeah for sure. It's been rad chatting with you. Is there anything you would like to tell the world?

JS—Thanks mate! Got a few cool projects coming pretty soon, keep an eye out on the gram for them and hopefully a new merch line to be being delivered around June area.