When he joined, Lee oversaw just some different designers and “was designing issues myself,” he recalled. “We had completed some advertising and marketing, however not something at any grand scale.”
In his first yr on the job, Lee determined to develop the startup’s first model marketing campaign. “I needed to set the bar a bit greater,” he recalled. His staff shot the low-budget marketing campaign themselves, after which “we have been off to the races.”
It was round that point that Lee was additionally impressed to construct an in-house artistic company. “We’re a DIY product—it’s in our DNA—so it is sensible for us to DIY virtually all the things we do,” he mentioned.
“Early on it grew to become obvious that Squarespace was a artistic and design-led firm—we care concerning the craft, how our product feels, how individuals use it,” he continued. “We needed to do the identical factor for our model.”
A ‘DIY’ company
For the previous eight years, Squarespace hasn’t used an exterior company. Its in-house operation now employs about 65 individuals, together with creatives, designers, photographers, editors and producers.
“In some methods [the team] is about up like a standard company, and in some methods it’s a lot completely different,” Lee mentioned.
One distinction is that in its New York workplace, it has an in-house studio the place lots of its movies are directed. The creators shoot about 90% of content material themselves, Lee mentioned.
Having this expertise in-house means “the pace with which we are able to greenlight an thought, put it into manufacturing and put it out on the earth would make most companies crumble,” he contended.
From lo-fi to worldwide
From these early, low-budget campaigns, Squarespace has graduated into changing into a fixture on promoting’s largest stage: the Tremendous Bowl.
Below Lee’s supervision, Squarespace has now produced 9 Tremendous Bowl adverts. This yr’s spot was a surreal satire that includes actor Adam Driver, whereas 2022’s outing was a sea-themed tongue tornado starring Zendaya.
