COLLINS

Just in time for Figma’s Config conference here in San Francisco, Behind the Scenes returns, in partnership with our friends at molly. On Thursday, June 27th, we’ll host an intimate session with leaders across design and tech to get into the stories our case studies don’t (or can’t) tell. Speakers include: Taamy Amaize & Emily Sneddon, COLLINS Mathieu Boulet, Jitter John Butler, Industrial Craft Phil Ruppanner, Upperquad Terkel Gjervig Nielsen, GitHub Brian Collins, COLLINS And special guests… We’ve found that dropping sharp, talented folks into a room with a good projection screen and a fridge full of drinks is a winning combination. If you’re around, please join us. You can RSVP here, space is limited. https://www.btsnights.com

80% of low-income working adults want to attend school but cannot afford it. That’s why CEO Rachel Romer founded Guild. As a tuition finance company, Guild helps employers pay their employees’ tuition by facilitating those payments. The new B Corp’s impact delighted everyone. 220% increase in career mobility for participants. 210% improvement in employer retention of its participants. 88% of all participants are first-generation college students. However, the response among low-income employees was lukewarm. Guild’s executive team struggled to square the strength of their proposition (“tuition-free education!”) with low employee participation rate. Guild’s problem, though, was a categorical one. Despite 71% of employers offering tuition assistance, only 2% of employees use it. “Tuition-free education,” it turns out, only matters if it’s paired with the right educator. But finding that match is expensive. It takes too much time for working adults to find the right one. And it takes too much money for educators to find the right students. This market friction, economists note, has contributed to America’s sharp decline in socio-economic mobility. (Globally, America slipped to 27th place.) Solving the education market’s friction – not its high tuition costs – was the greatest value creation opportunity. This was a highly credible role for Guild. Guild earns revenue when an employee completes a program. This incentivizes them to help both sides of the market find each other and improve outcomes. That’s why Guild recruits educators, builds education programs with companies, markets these programs to employees, and supports participants throughout their education journeys – improving outcomes for all three parties. Guild is what economists call a “market maker.” Retiring its “tuition finance company” framing and “tuition-free education” story, we worked with Guild to reconceptualize them as an “education market maker” with a clear purpose: to increase the socio-economic mobility of America’s low-wage workforce. We signaled this change with a revamped brand identity, an inviting new voice and a populist, dynamic expression. You can see the work, here: https://lnkd.in/ezwnaMKU And our good friends at Forbes Magazine cover the story, here: https://lnkd.in/ei8wWeG6 TEAM Tom Elia Mariah Bush Taamy Amaize L.A. Corrall Rejane Dal Bello Zuzanna Rogatty Morgan Light Barney Stepney Darius Dazhi Wang Sanuk Kim Emily Sneddon Jump Jirakaweekul George Lavender Ryan Bugden Beth Johnson Jade Kuzak Nicole Cousins HyungJin (Eric) Park Alex Blumfelder Shelby Shelman Taylor Zahrt Chris Roan Alex Athanasiou

If you’re in New York and free tomorrow, please join us. We have a few spots left. If you can’t make it, we’ll be announcing future dates, soon. https://www.btsnights.com/

Thanks to our good friends at Adobe, we have two, one year Creative Cloud licenses to give away. Making good work is hard. It’s easier with the right tools. To enter, comment your website URL with work samples. Winners will be notified via DM by June 1. Artwork by: Morgan Light

London, I heard you like tea. At least, more than coffee for a Friday afternoon. So next week, Coffeehaus now becomes… Teahaus. Same principles. Free. Good bites. Good people. All are welcome. We just did it in Ipanema. Why not Shoreditch? With our friends at Google Creative Lab, we’ll be putting on Chai, Oolong, Chamomile, Dandelion, Earl Grey, Green, Hibiscus, Darjeeling, Matcha, Ashwagandha, Ginger, Ceylon, Peppermint, and Pimms (and good conversation) all afternoon. COLLINS co-founder Leland Maschmeyer and I are in town joining all the good people at D&AD for the D&AD Festival. This coming week we’ll be speaking about transformation and design. I am also honored to chairing the D&AD brand design jury. We figured we’d stick around to hang out with a few more Londoners before we left. Friday, May 24, 3-5pm. Afterwards, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up at a pub. Or, two. You can RSVP, here. Spaces are limited. https://lnkd.in/e8BvrN2c .

Our good colleague Lauren Ranke is giving a talk. It’s about how we are imagining a new future for design and how we are finding and supporting our good crew to build it. Apparently, there are still tickets left.

The secret gem of Venice: Palazzo Fortuny Mariano Fortuny (1871-1949) was a remarkable painter, stage, and textile designer. Born into a family of artists, with a curiosity and spirit devoted to creative experimentation and scientific research, Fortuny epitomized the Renaissance ideal of cross-discipline exploration and expression. Tomorrow, we take a look inside.

H-FARM in Venice, Italy lives on the bleeding edge of what a future of AI education looks like. This year, they rolled out Europe’s first collegiate AI program with Microsoft. We joined them last week to contribute to the conversation. Edit by Leonardo Cametti Aspri