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Marko Pfann

@markopfann

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I've been a @dixonbaxi fanboy since I started in motion design in the early 2000s. Back then, their work was the benchmark. The stuff I pulled up before a pitch to remind myself what good looks like. I studied their rebrands the way other people studied film. Frame by frame. Trying to understand why it worked so good. Why it captivated me. Then, this past year, something I never thought I'd experience happened. I got to sit on the other side of the table. As a client. Yes. working with the entire DB team on our own brand. And that's a strange thing, meeting the people behind the work you've admired for twenty years. Usually there's a risk in that. The myth is bigger than the reality. Not here. What I got to see up close is a culture, not just a portfolio. The way they operate. The way they communicate. The way everyone in the room, junior or senior, feels seen and heard. Nobody performs. Everybody contributes. It's remarkable what Simon and Aporva have built over two decades. And you feel it the moment you walk into the studio. It's different. Energetic. Creative. Welcoming. You can't fake that atmosphere. It's earned, decision by decision, year by year. We've had many conversations with Simon, Aporva and the team since. About work, about leadership, about why we do this at all. I've learned a lot. Their perspective changed how I think about my own work these days. ABout my role in the industry and about what a creative business can be when it's built on intention instead of survival. So this is just a thank you. From one corner of the industry to another. Thank you for two decades of raising the bar. Thank you to the entire team for a great experience. And thank you for sharing your thinking in this gem of a book that just came out. You'll find it at your preferred book dealer. Still a fanboy. Now with better reasons. by @markopfann
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3 months ago
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Divide and conquer. Keep people apart, and they get weaker. More confused. Easier to manage. And without anyone planning it, that's quietly become the shape of our industry. Freelancers pitching against freelancers. Studios guarding their numbers. Everyone doubting themselves alone at midnight, assuming everyone else has it figured out. Here's the thing: nobody has it figured out. They're just as alone as you are. That confusion you feel about pricing, about direction, about who you even are in this changing AI invested market right now. It's not a personal failure. There's nothing wrong with you. You are simply confused. Because you are disconnected. It's what happens to anyone who's been working in isolation for too long. Divided people doubt. Themselves. The others. It's almost mathematical. And the remedy is just as old as the trick: spend time together. Something shifts when you share a table. You hear what others actually charge, and your own price stops feeling like a guess. You hear your competitors describe your exact struggle, and it stops feeling like your private shame. You say something out loud and finally hear what you really think. I'm serious happens to me all the time. I learn by talking to others. Hearing myself. Ditch that performance coach. No need to be dramatic. No breakthrough seminar. Just people who carry the same weight, comparing notes over dinner and everyone leaving a little clearer than they came. That's @paradisoinstitute. One table, carefully chosen people, nothing to win from each other. No hierachy. All in the same boat. by @markopfann
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3 months ago
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3am and you're doing math in your head. The project ends in August. The pipeline behind it is dry. You quoted a project last week and you still didn't hear back. Was the number too high? Or worse, embarrassingly low. You'll know soon. But here's the question underneath the math, the one that actually keeps you up: who could I even ask? That's the part nobody talks about. Running your own business, small or big, is a lonely place. Even when you have partners. When you're in the right rooms, you do better. You absorb the answers without noticing. What to charge. How to handle the client who ghosts after the third round. What to offer next year. Whether everyone's struggling right now or just you. But you're not. You left the room years ago. Your friends? They are now your competitors. You lost connection. Not only to your peers, but to yourself as well. And guess what, the information stops flowing. And so does your confidence. Not because you got worse. Because you left the room where knowledge moves. So you do what everyone does. You guess. You Google. You read another post from someone who's clearly also guessing. Or you buy a course from some pricing guru. And at 3:33am, you wonder how other studio owners and freelancers actually do it. Who do they ask? How do they know. Especially the ones that are successful. Here's the honest answer: No-one, mostly. Everyone's doing 3am math and calling it being independent. You're not alone in this. After 25 years in this industry, helping people with exactly these questions, I can tell you the difference between the people who stay stuck in their heads and the people who don't. It's not talent. It's not hustle. It's whether they found a new room to belong to. We are building those rooms. Room where your peers will answer your questions. Like for real. Where someone two years ahead of you tells you what's coming. Where the math stops being something you do alone in the dark. That's what we're building at @paradisoinstitute If you know how the 3am math problem feels, we're open for new members. by @markopfann
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3 months ago
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No-one to talk to? No-one to ask for guidance? Somewhere in your twenties you had a boss, a teacher, a creative director who took you aside and told you what you couldn't yet see about yourself. About your craft. I had two. Patrick and Thomas. Three months working with them on a channel branding changed my career. Yours changed your trajectory too. You can probably still quote them. Now think of the last time that happened. Been a while, hasn't it? Here's what the industry does to people who succeed: it stops developing them. Development is for juniors. Once you run the team, the studio, close the clients, carry the name, everyone assumes you've arrived. The truth is the opposite. The questions get harder exactly when the guidance stops. Who tells the creative director what they can't see? Who mentors the person everyone else calls their mentor? Nobody. Not out of malice. There's simply no structure for it. So growth, for experienced creatives, becomes a solo project, run at midnight, on doubt and podcasts. @paradisoinstitute exists because that structure had to be built on purpose. Real rooms where the people who carry everyone else finally get carried. Not by a guru at a flipchart. By peers who see what you can't, because they're standing two steps to the side of it. If nobody's taken you aside in ten years. Come join us. Paradiso is welcoming new members. by @markopfann
1
3 months ago
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Imagine this: You're at the after-party of a creative festival, holding a lukewarm beer, surrounded by two hundred people who do what you do. You've handed out your IG profile more times then you can count. You've said "we should collaborate" almost as many times. And standing in the middle of all of it, you realize you haven't had one real conversation all day. Everyone talked about work. Nobody talked about anything. Here's the uncomfortable truth about our industry: it's brilliant at bringing people together to talk about the work, and terrible at bringing them together to talk about everything underneath it. The doubt. The ambition you don't say out loud. The question of who you're becoming after all these years of making things for other people. So we all walk around with the same weight, each of us convinced we're carrying it alone. Believing others have a easier path. Because the industry has a thousand stages for showing work, and almost no rooms for showing yourself. That's what Paradiso is. Not another stage; a room. Real events where experienced creatives actually meet. Talk about the real things. Share what's working and what's quietly falling apart. Connect. To each other, and to the part of themselves that got buried under twenty years of deadlines. If you've ever left an event with that empty feeling, the feeling of not being seen, come join us at @paradisoinstitute. Because here's what happens in that room. The doubt that felt so personal turns out to be shared. Everyone recognizes it. Someone two steps ahead of you tells you what's on the other side. Someone two steps behind reminds you how far you've come. And you leave with something the industry almost never gives you: the feeling of being seen for who you are, not just for what you deliver. Nobody builds this kind of room for creatives. Everyone assumes we're fine, we make beautiful things, we must be doing great. So next time you're standing at one of those parties, warm beer in hand, look around. Every person in that crowd is hungry for the same conversation you are. It just needs a place to happen. Now it has one. by @markopfann
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3 months ago
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Over the past twelve years I’ve worked with creative studios across EU and the US. Different countries, different markets and different cultures. Yet one conversation comes up so often that I can almost predict when it’s going to happen. Someone eventually says, “The real money is in the US.” They’re right. The budgets are larger, the opportunities are bigger and the market is deeper. What usually follows, however, is the assumption I’ve stopped believing. Many EU based studios think that if they’re just as good, and significantly cheaper, the work will naturally come to them. It makes perfect sense on paper. But it doesn’t match what I’ve consistently observed. The studios winning the biggest opportunities are rarely winning because they’re the cheapest. They’re not always winning because they have the strongest portfolio either. More often than not, they’re winning because the client already knows who they are and trusts how they think. That trust wasn’t built during the pitch. It began months, sometimes years, earlier through articles, talks, podcasts, workshops and conversations. By the time the brief arrived, they weren’t introducing themselves. They were continuing a relationship that had already started. Perhaps that’s the shift we’re living through. The portfolio still matters, but it has become the price of admission rather than the deciding factor. It proves you can execute. It doesn’t necessarily prove that you’re the person someone wants beside them when the decisions become difficult. I’m beginning to think we’re moving from a portfolio economy to a trust economy. If that’s true, the creatives who thrive over the next decade won’t simply be the ones producing the best work. They’ll be the ones whose thinking people trust long before the work ever begins.

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 If these ideas resonate with you, follow along. If you’re ready to put them into practice, ask me HOW via a DM. by @markopfann
0
4 months ago
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You’re not their first call. And that is THE problem. Most creatives spend years mastering their craft. You became an exceptional designer, director, animator, filmmaker, photographer, writer, and artist. Yet when a client has a good project, you are rarely the first person called. You're called after the big idea is approved and after the budget is set and mostly distributed. Definitely after the brief is written, and after all the important creative decisions have already been made. After the fun part really. At that point, you’re no longer helping shape the future. You’re execute someone else’s vision. And the worst part, you probably discounted just to get the job. Over the last 12 years, I’ve consulted creative studios, founders, agencies, artists, and experts around the world. One thing stands out. The fun and exciting projects don’t go to the most talented people or studios. They go to the studios who are trusted to think, not only to execute. Those people clients call when they’re still trying to figure things out. When they don't know what to do. That's what you should be positioned for. You want to be the person or studio invited into the room before the brief exists. The one hired for direction, not just execution. And because literally everyone struggles to make that shift. To break though that glass ceiling, I’ve decided to open up the frameworks, lessons, systems, and insights I’ve developed over the past decade. Everything I’ve learned about positioning, authority, trust, visibility, thought leadership, consulting, creative business, and becoming the person people call first. If you’re tired of being brought in too late and want access to the teachings, send me a DM, and I'll reply personally. by @markopfann
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4 months ago
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Nobody knows sh*t. (Read the end if you want to be the person your clients call first) Ok, so nobody knows sh*t. Not your clients. Not your boss. Not the people with the biggest audiences. Not the consultants charging a fortune. Not the industry leaders you admire. Not the experts charging ten times more than you. Not even your spouse. Most people are making decisions with incomplete information and hoping they’re right. The difference is that those people move anyway. For years, I thought everyone else had something I didn’t. More certainty. More confidence. A better plan. Some hidden piece of knowledge that explained why they were succeeding while I was still figuring things out. Then I started working with founders, studio owners, creatives, and leaders at the highest levels of the industry. What I discovered was surprisingly reassuring. They’re figuring it out too. The ones we admire aren’t successful because they know exactly what they’re doing. They’re successful because they’re willing to act before they have all the answers. They publish before they’re ready. They share their point of view before it’s perfect. They make decisions without knowing how everything will turn out. They trust themselves enough to move. I believe this is one of the biggest reasons talented people stay stuck. They’re waiting for certainty. Waiting for permission. Waiting for someone smarter, more experienced, or more qualified to tell them what to do next. That moment rarely comes. At some point, you have to choose yourself. — Over the last twelve years, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some incredible people and learn a few things along the way. One thing I’ve become increasingly passionate about is making high-level education accessible to the people who need it most. That’s why we’re giving away twelve years of consulting insights, frameworks, mistakes, lessons, and hard-earned experience in a way that creative professionals can actually afford. Because no one should have to spend a decade figuring everything out alone. If you’re trying to become more relevant, build a stronger point of view, attract better opportunities, send me a DM. by @markopfann
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4 months ago
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The only business advice any creative needs to hear: Craft isn’t everything. But without exceptional craft, nothing else matters. If you want to build a studio you’re actually proud of, there are a few things that are non-negotiable. The first to get you 60& of the way, the 1. Create exceptional work. The market moves. Standards rise. The moment you think your work is “good enough,” someone younger, hungrier, and more obsessed is already eating your cake. Never stop improving. 2. Stay foolish. Experiment. Test. Play. Take risks. Most studios become predictable long before they become successful. The moment you think you’ve figured it out, you’re replaceable . 3. Be humble. Be someone people want to work with. Talent gets you hired. Character gets you rehired. Nobody wants to spend six months working with an a*, no matter how talented they are. 4. Get in the room. Not the Zoom room. The actual room. Conferences. Dinners. Events. Retreats. Industry gatherings. 9/10 opportunities don’t come from portfolios. They come from proximity. 5. Solve real problems. Clients hire you for one thing and hope you’ll help with ten others. Don’t just execute the brief. Understand the business problem, the political problem, and the human problem behind it. Do that and you’ll never run out of jobs anymore. 6. Learn how to sell and market yourself without selling out. The best work in the world is worthless if nobody knows it exists. You don’t need to become an influencer. But you do need to learn how to articulate your value and become visible. 7. Contribute. To your industry. To your community. To the next generation. Share what you’ve learned. Open doors for others. Leave things better than you found them. Take more responsibility than your invoice requires. It’s why people talk about you. That’s it. No secret funnel. No growth hack. No personal branding trick. Just great work. Good people. Being useful. And enough patience to keep showing up long after everyone else quits. Credits: Painting by @maxim.maevschi Picture from the Paradiso Workshop at FIC 2026 in co-opertion with @artcor_center in Chișinău. by @markopfann
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4 months ago
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Senses Before Sense landed at FIC and invited people to create the way children often do: with curiosity, instinct and very little concern for getting it right. The outcome was messy, playful and unexpectedly beautiful. We 💚 you Moldova! Huge thanks to @lidiascarlat @markopfann @cor.moldova @artcor_center @wearepiko @dont_forget_to_have_fun and Constantin Sarcov at Piko for making this possible. by @markopfann
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4 months ago
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You cannot lead if you’re still copying others. Most creatives spend years refining their craft. Eventually they get promoted, start a business, become freelancers, or simply outgrow the identity of being the person who executes. That’s where the real challenge begins. Because the skills that make you a great designer, animator, strategist, writer or filmmaker are not the same skills that make you a great leader. The person clients trust. The person teams follow. The person people seek out for advice. Nobody teaches you how to articulate your value. How to communicate ideas. How to build trust. How to coach. How to create change. Over the last twenty years, I’ve built, grown and sold a creative studio and a creative consultancy. Looking back, the biggest breakthroughs never came from another outreach tactic, business strategy or hot trend. They came when people stopped asking, “What is everyone else doing?” and started asking, “What do I actually have to say?” Because leadership starts with a point of view. Once you find your point of view, you find your voice. And once you find your voice, you stop following and start leading. Your clients. Your team. Your business. And ultimately, yourself. That’s why I’m teaching everything I’ve learned about leadership, communication, psychology, coaching, consulting, positioning, content, sales and community building. Not to help people become influencers. To help them become the leaders our industry needs. Creative Directors. Founders. Consultants. Coaches. Educators. People with a perspective worth following. If that sounds like where you want to go, send me a message. I’m already running a small group and we’re looking for six more people to join us. Photo: Paradiso Workshop at FIC 2026 in collaboration with @artcor_center, Chișinău. Painting by @maxim.maevschi by @markopfann
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4 months ago
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Creative people are not meant to grow alone. Yet most of the industry pushes us toward isolation. Compete harder. Post more. Perform constantly. Turn yourself into a product. Over time, that pressure disconnects people from the reason they started creating in the first place. Not because they lost talent. Because they lost connection. The right community changes that. When you are surrounded by people who genuinely care about design, culture, craft, and meaningful work, something shifts. You think bigger. You speak more honestly. You take better risks. You stop building from survival mode. That’s the real value of community. Not networking. Not followers. Not “exposure.” Support. Challenge. Perspective. Belonging. The best creative careers are rarely built alone. Behind almost every important movement in culture was a group of people pushing each other forward. That’s what we are building at Paradiso. A space for creatives who want to build meaningful lifes, create better work, and grow alongside people who actually care. Because when creative people feel connected, they create differently. We are inviting new members now. Reach out. Picture by: @ojharv Harvey / Lovely model: @lidiascarlat by @markopfann
8
5 months ago
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