Seafarer Studio

Killer copy for brands we love www.seafarerstudio.com

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What Now? Lessons from Startup Life

It’s been over a year since we posted here, and for good reason. Last summer our freelance journey ended (or was put on pause, more on that later). Tom took a job helping to grow an awesome startup. And I followed my preoccupation with solving brand problems to an agency that lets me make serious political AND goofy brand content.

Still, after a year back in the old routine, there are a few startup habits we just can’t shake. 

I’ll figure it out: The DIY-ness of freelance life carries over when you go full time. When faced with something I don’t know how to do, I’ll dive into it, relishing the process of figuring it out. For my company, this is a double-edged sword: there are other people who can tackle it faster than I can figure it out, but my new understanding ensures my company doesn’t rely on a few people with deep institutional knowledge to function smoothly. 

LOL career: Careers don’t really exist unless you want them to. At least, that’s what I told a bunch of interns at a learning session last week. While most of my colleagues followed a linear path into advertising, my job history is purposely all over the place. Yet, I never have trouble in job interviews figuring out how that story fits together, because the through line is me. The curiosity that led me from project to project still drives me, even in a job where I don’t always choose what I work on. Learning to follow my instincts rather than strategizing a five year plan was super liberating, and I was glad to be able to say it to young people terrified of making the wrong move.

If you add value, you have power: I used to feel like my company had all the power. That if I lost a job, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. So I didn’t ask for the things I wanted to make past jobs what I wanted them to be. Freelancing helped to flip that script. I know what I’m worth. I know what’s important to me. I know when I’m adding value and when I’m phoning it in. And I’m not afraid to quit or be fired if those things don’t match up with my current gig. 

You can’t leave it behind: We still work nonstop. It’s a curse. 

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The Importance of Being Impermanent

“What’s next for you?”

“Disease and death.”

The early-riser crowd erupted in laughter at this dark declaration, courtesy of Pentagram partner and all-around badass Paula Scher, whose recent Creative Mornings talk ever-so-briefly broke the internet as designers across the city scrambled to snag a free ticket.

Scher’s topic was ink, and she used the platform to launch a wider discussion about permanence and ephemera, weaving in tales of her personal artistic practice (painting metro maps), preferred method of recharging (gardening) and favorite work (subway ads and lots of work she did for free). 

At the time, Scher wasn’t at liberty to discuss a high profile project she was soon to launch: the new branding of The New School. So she was still, at the moment, shielded from the small-time tempest that would erupt on social media when the final designs were revealed. 

Full disclosure, I’m a graduate and a former employee of The New School, so its visual identity is something I actually care about. When I first applied to a graduate program in 2006, the look and feel of the place (as well as the administrative function) was a bit scattershot. There were three different website and logo iterations during my six year stint. I was never really partial to any, and welcomed the Pentagram refresh. 

Here’s where it landed: 

I know, I know. Brands rebranding is tedious. Consumers just want you to make better products. They don’t care what your website looks like. That is, until they do. As work gets ever less geocentric and ever more round-the-clock, a certain digital and design fluency is crucial to success. And in this case, I think The New School really nails it. The new identity is as quirky and bold and off-kilter as the university itself—all retro 70s posturing and earnest, endless reinvention.

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Editorial Indiscretion: Kill These Trendy Words

We work in words. All day, every day. Do enough writing and you start to play favorites. It’s only natural. A rogue-yet-clever adjective here, an em dash there. Nothing egregious—just a little signature flourish to make it your own. But eventually, all writers have to kill their darlings.

Today, we’re killing yours.

Words, like all forms of creative expression, are subject to trends. And in our three years working with alpha startups and megacorporations and everyone in between, we’ve seen a few cool kids emerge from the pile. Buzzwords that every company is clamoring to insert into their copy.

It’s not that they’re garbage words. In fact, most are pretty powerful on their own. But they rose so quickly, fell so far, we fear they’ll seem dated by morning. Remember that time when every tech job title was evangelist or ninja? This isn’t quite that, but it’s getting there.

Where last year, we delighted.

Today (and probably tomorrow) we elevate:

And let’s not forget the king of 2013, bespoke:

Of course, we’ve been wrong in the past—technologist is a pretty cool title, I suppose—so maybe these words have some staying power. But they definitely need a rest. Luckily, we’ve been ideating since 2008. We’ve got plenty of other words in our collective arsenal. 

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We appear to have collectively, silently come to the conclusion that content is really somebody else’s problem—“the client can do it,” “the users will generate it”—so we, the people who make websites, shouldn’t have to worry about it in the first place. Do you think it’s a coincidence, then, that web content is, for the most part, crap?

Kristina Halvorsen, content strategy pioneer and Seafarer spirit animal

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The Importance of Narrative, According to The (Fictitious) President of The United States.

This week, Tom dives deep into Season 3 of House of Cards. (Warning: Spoilers ahead)

I just finished the new season of the Netflix Original House of Cards, and if the numbers are to be believed, I am among the 500,000 people who finished the entire season in the first weekend of its release. The addictive series involving a vicious politician and his relentless pursuit of legacy is the reigning champ of the binge watching competition and it is easy to see why. There is enough political intrigue and backstabbing to make even the most seasoned Washington politico’s skin crawl, but what struck me the most about the season was the insight I gained watching episode 5.

This season, new President Francis Underwood is on a mission to get a controversial jobs program—America Works—off the ground by any means necessary. In episode 5, we get a glimpse of the lengths to which Frank is willing to go to rally support for this new program. He re-appropriates FEMA funds by declaring Washington, DC and its job climate a state of emergency, which is an unpopular decision to say the least. But it was a less dramatic moment of the episode that struck me.

As copywriters, one of our many goals is to sell our clients on the importance of crafting an engaging brand narrative. To tell a story with each piece of copy is a challenge for any company, but the potential rewards are innumerable. And Frank Underwood understands the potential that lies in a great story.

In episode 5, Frank enlists the help of National Book Award Winner Tom Yates to write the story of the America Works jobs program. Frank recruits Yates as his storyteller not because of his award-winning novels but because of his review of the indie video game Monument Valley. Frank is impressed by Tom’s ability to sell him on the story behind the game. In less than 100 words, Tom managed to convince the President of The United States, to play an iPad puzzle game in lieu of his usual shoot ‘em ups. It was the story that sold the product.

Of course, Frankis looking to create propaganda.We are trying to sell great products and services by building great stories around them. People love stories—they’re what keep us in bars right up to last call or glued to a screen until the credits roll.

Stories capture the imagination. They immerse the reader/listener in the narrative, which adds intimacy to the experience. Creating a story that captures your audience and draws them in should be the first step in building your brand. Give the consumer something they can sink their teeth—and their limitless imaginations—into and you have won a battle before the war has even started.

What Frank Underwood realized intuitively—and what we argue for every single day— is that the stories behind the brands matter. that is what people really care about. Sure they want to know that your product works and hear that your production methods are sustainable, but they really want to know who you are and by extension who they are.

There are a lot of takeaways from this season of House of Cards. Many of them involve not being a sociopathic egomaniac on a mission to create a legacy by any means possible. But the biggest takeaway for me is the importance of using your story as the catalyst to engage people. Give the consumers something to talk about and they will keep coming back, if only to read the next chapter of your ongoing odyssey.

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That's a Good Question

We've talked a lot on here about letting your interests guide you. And there's a reason: it's probably the single best thing about working for yourself. The ability to choose your projects, dive into unknown worlds and think like someone else for a minute is a rare gift. It's why we became writers in the first place. 

Beyond brand copy, there's another Seafarer service that is perhaps even more dear to our hearts: the profile. We suggest them often to clients looking to pep up potentially drowse-inducing About Us or Bio pages, and craft them for blogs and alumni magazines. This gig has put us in the room with some amazing people: Mary Gaitskill, Jenna Lyons, Robert Wong. And the conversations have always been interesting, expanding our perspective and giving us things to think about long after the discussion is through.   

Interviewing involves a lot of prep work. You have to learn what you can about your subject, read the other interviews they've done, try to draft questions that won't bore them to tears. You arrive with a wealth of background information and a list of expertly crafted questions in the exact order you'd like to ask them. Then it all goes to hell. 

Interviewing is a lot like that first day of teaching: it's incredibly intimidating and you always have to put on a bit of a show. Conversations start in one direction and veer off to somewhere completely unexpected. People get nervous and barely say anything, or offer canned replies they've given many times before. There's only one way out of this hole: a good question. 

So what qualifies as a good question? It varies. Interviewing well means constantly reading your subject and adjusting your narrative on the fly. You can't fit their answers into your pre-conceived notions. You have to work with what you're given. There's no magic question that breaks every interview wide open, but here's where our business ethos applies: let your interests guide you. Ask that follow up you've kept in your hip pocket, worried it's too reductive or irrelevant or both. Your enthusiasm, your genuine interest in filling in the gaps of their story, will go a long way toward turning an interview back into an engaging conversation. 

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Just launched: the site for Elysium Health, the Nobel-heavy team taking daily supplements to the next level.

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Polymathy Not Included

Tom reflects on a year of learning on the fly

I come from a classic professional background: working in a single industry, focusing all of my attention on mastering that specialization. It was like this when I was working at a machine shop in Randolph, New Jersey, and it was like this when I was an executive recruiter in New York City.

I’ve always been curious, almost to a fault. I’ve always wanted to dig deeper into the subjects I don’t know much about (trust me, it’s an ever growing list). For the longest time I thought that those pursuits wouldn’t help me in a world where expertise is king and specialization is queen. I thought “don’t waste your time reading about the Viking conquests of the 8th century, that won’t help your career,” because I was afraid to lose focus on the current, one-dimensional task at hand. But slowly, my curiosity got the better of me and I began relentlessly pursuing topics that interested me again—which is proving useful at this very moment.

Over the past year, I’ve worked on projects spanning industries I’d never encountered before. Each pushed me far out of my comfort zone and into to a place where I am better able to learn and grow. In this short time, I’ve worked with architects-turned-fashion designers, finance guys turned consumer health entrepreneurs, public parks looking to refresh their image and institutes of higher education trying to recruit abroad. Because we’re a small shop, I was deeply involved with each project, which forced me to learn about so many new things: outerwear design, biotech and supplements, the makings of a web series, the rich history of Prospect Park. This process nurtured my inherent curiosity, which is the driving force behind my motivation and, ultimately, the key to our success.

Curiosity is the inextinguishable fire inside that drives us in new directions, towards new endeavors and into uncharted waters. As science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once said: “specialization is for insects.” We are a complex animal, and to deny our inner drive is to do ourselves a massive disservice. So I’ve decided to push myself, seek out new information no matter how trivial it feels, and throw myself into new experiences—and hopefully come out with a better view of myself and the world around me.

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We've got a new look for a new year. Check it out!

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One Line To Rule Them All

Like most entrepreneurs, we’re terminally curious. We read loads of books that seem irrelevant to our business goals (Scientology and Hemingway are popular around the office these days), take Coursera classes on music theory and Python, and force ourselves into daily Duolingo French lessons. We like to know more today than we did yesterday. 

You know that thing where you become aware of something and then you notice it EVERYWHERE? It happens all the time. When I was 17, I drove a Jeep Wrangler, and suddenly there were 10 times more Wranglers on the road (and they all waved to each other—Jeep people are insanely friendly). This happened recently while reading Blake Snyder’s screenwriting guide Save the Cat (we’re writers who love LA—of course we have screenplay dreams). The entire book is pegged on a single sentence: the log line. The one sentence that tells viewers (or Hollywood execs) what your movie is about and why they HAVE to see it. It’s a smile, a wink and a gut punch all in one. And the best ones sell movies. 

That same week, we were catching up on one of the best business resources of the year, the completely free How to Start a Startup course from Sam Altman and the Y Combinator team (if you haven’t checked it out, go now!). While the course is primarily focused on product (takeaway: build something people love), the B-plot is storytelling—how can you explain this complicated thing you’ve built in a way people understand? The answer: the one liner.

A good one liner is the single most important thing you need to sell any product. Even ours. 

We’ve kicked around many taglines over the years before landing on this one: Killer copy for brands we love. It’s the best encapsulation of who we are and what we do. 

The killer part signals we aren’t totally boring. But the most important part is the “brands we love.” We’re selective about who we work with. Not because we don’t want to help struggling businesses succeed (we do!), but because we know this is how to get results. When we can’t wait to get our hands on a product, when we can’t imagine living in a world without it—those are the stories we have to tell.

[joplinsiltro]

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Friday reminder

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It's More Than Just Copy

Our latest project to launch was a huge one: the new website for Prospect Park. Here, Tom reflects on what he learned along the way. (Pretty, right?)

We recently wrapped up one of our biggest projects to date: a complete overhaul of the Prospect Park Alliance website. It was big group effort, and it was a pleasure working with The Prospect Park Alliance, the designers from OCD and the developers over at Type/Code.

This was a different kind of project for us, because we’re typically working with early stage startups looking to cement their brand voice and messaging. In these endeavors, the teams are almost always small—up-and-coming companies rarely have the resources for a big staff. But this Prospect Park project was a horse of a different color. There were a lot of moving pieces—a much larger team, WAY more pre-existing content and the reputation of one of New York City's most iconic parks on the line.

The main difference was the sheer amount of content. As you can imagine, the Park's old website had a massive amount of existing content that needed to be audited, edited and transferred over to the new site. So we had to pivot our focus from content generation to content curation. After working and living in NYC for the better part of the last decade, it was hard for me to imagine New York through new eyes. Yet, millions of people visit the Park on a yearly basis, and many have never before stepped foot on the hallowed ground we call home. Figuring out how to talk to these urban explorers was an amazing perspective shift for a jaded New Yorker.

This may be the masochist in me, but I also really enjoyed uploading the content into the Park’s new Content Management System (or CMS for you techies). It was fun for one reason and one reason only: I've never done it before. It was all brand new, and it gave me an opportunity to place my brain on the proverbial whetstone and sharpen an edge that never existed. Learning the backend of a website gives you an understanding of how truly vast it is. There was so much to learn and a limited time to learn it, and I found myself diving deeper into the CMS than I ever imagined. Learning new skills is always rewarding, and gaining insight into how the websites we interact with on a daily basis are set up was one of the best parts of this project for me.

The new site is up and running—and it really looks amazing. Take a look, or do yourself one better and get out to the park and experience it in person. That’s what it was built for. Although I can't blame you if you end up navigating through for a few hours before you venture out.

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Slow for the Holidays: Powering Through the Slump

Welcome to Thanksgiving week. As office workers across the country arm their vacation responders and scatter toward their hometowns, we the freelancers enter the dreaded period known simply as slump season. These are our third holidays at Seafarer, which means we've had two years to learn from our mistakes. So we present our very subjective guide to getting through the holiday slump with a little bit of cheer.

Plan: Anyone who's been freelancing for more than a few months knows the feast/famine cycle. Some weeks you're buried in work, others you're scrambling for the next opportunity. November through January are like the uberfamine: offices close, budgets are depleted, and new projects are on hold. The best way to weather this storm is to plan ahead and line up jobs a few months in advance.

Hustle: We all want to plan ahead, but if you haven't or couldn't, there's hope. Offices may be closed, but people still need services. A Craigslist post here, an Elance listing there, and your well on your way to making money over the holidays. 'Tis the season to work on your side hustle. 

Rest: It's only natural to fight against it, but if your financial straits aren't dire, this is a good moment to swim with the tide. Freelancing is awash with long days and unpredictable hours. The holidays offer a rare opportunity: several weeks when a rapid response and your undivided attention are not expected. Take advantage of it.

Celebrate: One of the things we miss most on the startup skeleton crew are company holiday parties. Luckily, where you once had one employer, you now have many. So be on the lookout for holiday party invites, or go meet your fellow freelancers at the Freelancers Union Unoffice Holiday Party.

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Make It Count: The Launch Email

If there's one thing we love, it's helping brands tell a good story. But the struggle to craft the perfect homepage rests on a false assumption: your story almost never starts there. Users arrive from somewhere else—a media story, a friend's tweet, a search. Or via the most overlooked piece of content in the startup arsenal: the launch email. 

A few weeks back, in a discussion with Reddit founder and YCombinator partner Alexis Ohanian, Tim Ferriss mentions The Most Successful E-mail I Ever Wrote by CD Baby founder Derek Sivers. The email—the brand's order confirmation—had all the heart, soul and personality that traditional customer service experiences lack.

Similarly, our favorite Seafarer launch email is the announcement we wrote for Days, a daily photo diary app that is now a part of the Yahoo family. The brand was warm and personal with a touch of whimsy. The email was, too. And it left potential users with a novel impression—that Days is a not just a brand that you can talk to, but a brand that you actually want to talk to.

To Ferriss and Ohanian, these emails represent an incredible opportunity for brands to do something they almost never get to do: to talk to people like people. We couldn't agree more.

Emails come up around the 01:10:00 mark, but the whole thing is worth a listen.

Full text of the Days launch email:

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Do One Thing: Freelance Edition

This guy keeps me on track during the day

"I could never do what you do." I hear it all the time from friends and acquaintances who live in a land of biweekly pay schedules I've long since forgotten. Some of these people are right, of course. Their financial burdens too great, their familial responsibilities too vast, their personalities too risk-averse to jump ship for the wild world of startups. But most of them actually COULD do what I did, if only they'd learn the delicate art of unrelenting self-directed motivational manipulation. 

See, starting your own business may be foolish and insane, but it's not really extraordinary. At least not anymore. As the cracks in our economic system come into sharper focus, so does the necessity to develop skills that you can sell directly, without the intermediary of a company.

But to do it? That's the real struggle. Right now, I'm sitting at a cafe in my hometown, trying to desperately to not read a recap of last night's Nashville (a show, dear reader, I don't even watch). I have no immediate deadlines. If I quit right now, nothing bad would happen. No one will fire me. No one will even really know. I could sit here and read people panic about ebola on Twitter all day with absolutely no consequences beyond an all-consuming sadness for the deep selfishness of humanity. 

And yet, I write this post. I research a few startups I might want to work with. I draft pitches. I send out emails gently requesting payment. I claim a few content farm articles on topics I find interesting, which I treat as book reports for money. In short, I work. For at least a few hours. Every single day.

Because I can't afford to have zero days anymore. I have to do at least something each day for Seafarer, this thing I care for so deeply that I abandoned my 401k and my NYU library privileges and hundreds of business cards I didn't have to pay for.  How do I get something done each day? I manipulate my brain mercilessly in the following ways:

Stop thinking: My whole job is thinking, mulling things over, figuring things out. But when I really need to get things done, I stop all that. Identify the single thing I really need to get done. Then I don't eat, read, daydream or Gchat until I do it. 

Write it down: I'm a Virgo; I've never met a list I didn't like. At any given time, I have at least two to-do lists going: a daily electronic version on Teux Deux—check it out and an old-school weekly Moleskine. If I don't cross something off on each every day, I feel bad, and no one likes to feel bad.

Identify the next step: This is an old GTD technique, and the only one I employ on a regular basis. When a goal seems too big to tackle, how do you proceed? By identifying the next step. Even the biggest goals are just a series of little steps. I just can't let the size overwhelm me. Want to land six new clients? I'll start by reading Crunchbase's daily newsletter to see if any interest me. Want to teach a copy course? I'll fill out an inquiry on General Assembly's website. I might not accomplish the goals until next week, or next month, or next year, but I've made some progress. And sometimes a little sustained progress is all it takes.  

Make it a game: When all else fails, I like to bet against myself. External motivation is not a scarce resource when you have a boss, because the pressure to do your job or be embarrassed, scolded, or fired is always there. Not so when you are your own boss. So you have to give other people the power. Commit to arbitrary deadlines. Use an app like Lift as a prompt and as motivation (don't break the streak!). Bet a friend $20 that you can finish your whole list by end of day. Really pay up if you don't. When you know you can do something, it's easy to blow off. When you think you can't, you try your damnedest.

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Leave Everything You Know Behind

Writing for these guys was way fun. Check out the results: thearrivals.com

A year ago today I was sitting behind a desk in Florham Park, New Jersey about to start another day in the thankless land of IT recruitment. Looking back, it's amazing how one year can feel like ten. Fast forward a few months, and I had left IT recruitment behind to step into a world that was completely foreign to me: copywriting.

Four months into joining Seafarer, I was introduced to an architect-turned-outerwear designer named Jeff Johnson. A year ago, Jeff was working as an architect in Amsterdam. Like me, he was in the mood for a change. Since Amsterdam happens to be one of the wettest climates in Europe, the catalyst came in the form of downpours and damp clothes. Jeff linked up with friend-turned-business partner Kal Vepuri, and resolved to bring an architect’s eye to the stale industry of direct-to-consumer outerwear. An admittedly ambitious task, considering neither had any experience in fashion. If anyone could do it though, it was these two. Jeff and Kal wanted to build something, and that something became The Arrivals.

The Arrivals is the very first brand I had the pleasure of being involved with from start to finish. From discovery to brand lexicon development, box copy and hang tag copy and much more, the process was brand new. It opened my eyes to the world of copywriting and exposed me to the kind of motivated, tenacious creatives I had always longed to be around. Every day I spent in The Arrivals’ Union Square office was a pleasure. The place is teeming with creative energy and a drive to be great that borders on obsession. Everyone in that office genuinely believes in what they’re doing— a mentality that is contagious.

In a sense, my story and The Arrivals’ story runs parallel. We both decided to cast off the comfort of the known and dive headlong into something unfamiliar and, dare I say, a little scary. The Arrivals launches today, and a part of me is on fire with excitement. I know this feeling may wane, but it lets me know I'm doing what I should be doing. I live for the feeling of being a part of something— it's what drew me to New York City in the first place. New York has the unique ability to make you feel like you are knee-deep in something special. Working with The Arrivals gave me the exact same feeling. If this is a sign of things to come, the next few years are going to be filled with a little fear, anxiety, uncertainty—and a massive amount of fun.

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The Barter Economy

In the last six months, Seafarer has been making moves. Seeking new clients. Forging new partnerships. At some point in this process, it became all too clear that our Instagram and Hipstamatic selfies were no longer cutting it. We needed to become that which we feared. We needed headshots.

When you start a business, there are all these awkward moments when you look around and think "so, this is real." Asking someone to take professional photos of you is just one example (depositing a sizeable check and getting a fresh batch of business cards are two more). We'd avoided this particular benchmark until now because, well, it feels so self-serious and vain.

Luckily, we knew someone great. And, because she is one of our very best friends, she offered to take a few shots on barter. Flash forward a few days, to dusk on the High Line, where we're trading a pretty sweet flannel shirt and an adorably packaged Scandinavian chocolate bar for a 30-minute shoot. We've never had so much fun working on trade. 

The results: