In the early years, Taylor Studios, was often a subcontract fabricator of other firms in the industry. Most of the time, other fabricators came to us to get bids for scenic work. Occasionally, a design-only firm would bring us on as their builder. In both of these scenarios, we were relied on heavily to do the final construction drawings or to figure out how you could build some very unique components.

From the start of the business, we had clients ask us to design their exhibits. For example, in the late 90’s we designed five galleries covering Africa, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, Europe, The Americas, and The Ancient Mediterranean for The Spurlock Museum. Even earlier than that, a client like The Children’s Museum of Illinois would asked us what we could design and build within a very limited budget. It was more expensive for them to put a small exhibit like Our Body Our House out to more than one firm.

Life as a Subcontractor

When we were a subcontractor on large scenic projects, there was a huge variation in the quality of the designs we worked from depending on who designed it. Some designers would only provide a quick sketch of an idea and we would have to take it from there. In one situation, a designer literally drew a box on a large blueprint of paper and that was about it. The designer then asked us to do a more illustrative sketch for them and, since they brought us onboard, we obliged. They then took that sketch, hid our logo with matting, and submitted it to the client as their own design. The client caught it.

When we submitted bids for fabrication-only, it often was a commodity-based purchasing situation that was not apples to apples. The  firms we were bidding with wanted the lowest price in order to win the work. Much of what we fabricated for these jobs were unique things like a giant fish with guts showing, natural history dioramas, and sculptures that had to hold up to years and years of public use. These things are not mass produced like nails or cars where you can know the level of quality and therefore low price might make sense. Often, the quality of the work we saw produced on jobs we lost because we were not the lowest price made us sad for the client. Plus, we heard horror stories of the lack of professionalism, such as not hitting deadlines, which comes with hiring a less-qualified firm.

Officially Design-Build

With clients in the industry asking us to do design work, not liking the commodity-based situation of fabrication-only bidding, the fact that our design staff was creative and sought after, the frustrations we had when we were held accountable for lack of detail in others’ designs, and much more, we decided to come out of the closet with the announcement we were a design-build firm with gusto. When the news spread in the industry, I got a lot of warnings from industry insiders that no one would team up with us anymore and we wouldn’t get enough work. This was true to a certain degree. Many design-only firms, and the fabrication firms that had relationships with these design firms, stopped asking for our bids. We were seen as the competition. We thrived.

Providing the Best Service and Highest Quality

To this day, we do still team up with high-quality firms to provide clients with the best value. Some fabrication firms continue to come to us for scenic fabrication because they know they can rely on our process and quality for those unique components like lifecast figures. Sometimes, the end clients demand they come to us. Other times, the best thing to do for a project is to team up with other design and fabrication firms so we can work together to provide the client with the best expertise. If you are truly wanting to give your clients the finest, why wouldn’t you hire the best firms whether or not you compete with them occasionally?