PRACTICE

By Plinth Studio · Aug 2025 · 2 min read

Saying no to a brief is a design decision, not a business one.

We say no to work a few times a year, and it's rarely because the project is bad. Usually it's because it's not a project we're the right studio for — a scale we don't have the right team for, a style the client wants that isn't one we can do honestly, a timeline that would mean rushing the parts that matter.

It's tempting to take everything on and figure it out later. We've done that, early on, and the projects that resulted were fine — not embarrassing, just not as good as they could have been with a studio better matched to the brief.

Turning work away is uncomfortable in a way that's hard to explain to people outside the practice. It feels like it should be the wrong business decision. In our experience it's the decision that protects the work we do say yes to.

A studio that says yes to everything ends up average at everything. We'd rather be the right answer for fewer people than an adequate answer for everyone.