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As chief artistic officer of Squarespace for the previous decade, David Lee has witnessed a number of phases in its evolution. He was there within the early days when the platform was nonetheless a “scrappy” startup constructing upon founder Anthony Casalena’s unique elevator pitch when he launched it from his dorm room in 2003: “an internet site that makes web sites.”
That was a distinct segment on the time, however Squarespace has since expanded its enterprise past internet manufacturing and grown up in a digital panorama that’s shifting once more. The present section, which Lee likens to the Wild West, is being fueled by a brand new wave of creators and entrepreneurs—and the model needs to be with them for the following stage of that journey.
As platforms like Squarespace attempt to sustain with the quickly increasing creator economic system, they’re additionally feeling strain from the broader tech trade, which is going through mass cutbacks and layoffs. However Lee, who oversees Squarespace’s lauded in-house company, believes the identical ideas that helped the model take off will information it by the following unsure interval.
“Creativity was all the time on the root of our function. It’s about the way you differentiate your self in a sea of sameness,” Lee mentioned. “Within the section of the online that we’ve moved into, that very same factor applies to what we’re doing now.”
Ranging from scratch
Squarespace, which marks its twentieth anniversary this yr, appointed Lee in 2013 to be its artistic chief. For an organization with a seemingly dry enterprise proposition, hiring a designer with a background at artistic companies together with TBWAWorldwide (the place he was worldwide digital government artistic director) and Wieden+Kennedy (the place he was artistic director), could have appeared an uncommon transfer.
However the rent—and subsequent company launch—demonstrated an “unorthodox construction” whereby “the artistic staff sits on the government desk,” mentioned Lee.
