Design duo Lauren Wong Lee and Gabby Lord from Super Keen Studio have introduced a groundbreaking approach to presenting creative work that challenges the traditional case study format. Their innovative method uses embedded video pop-ups that interrupt website scrolling to explain the strategic thinking behind their designs, addressing a long-standing problem in the design industry of showcasing invisible strategic work.
The traditional design case study format has become predictable and limiting, typically featuring hero shots, process overviews, polished deliverables, and credits without revealing the strategic thinking that drives the work. Super Keen's new studio website directly confronts this tired formula with video explanations that provide insight into positioning frameworks, naming rationales, and narrative architecture that rarely make it into polished presentations.
"We've always found it tricky to showcase our strategy work," explains Gabby Lord. "Much of it is either too confidential to share directly or too complex to explain without losing the nuance. What really pushed us to rethink was noticing how imbalanced our case studies were. We take on three types of projects: Strategy & Design, Strategy-only, and Design-only. But until now, we only had case studies when design was involved, and that left out a big part of our work."
For Lauren Wong Lee, the motivation was deeply personal and professional. "I also collaborate a lot with design studios that don't have in-house strategy expertise. I'm really proud of a lot of that work, but we didn't have a good format to tell those stories. We thought this video approach was a good way to highlight those partnerships and the great work we did without overstating our role on the visual side of things."
The choice to use video content featuring Lauren's actual face and voice represents a deliberate strategy to connect with audiences in an increasingly crowded digital landscape. "We aren't convinced that people would actually read long write-ups," Gabby admits frankly. "It's hard to grab attention these days! When we looked at how people were really consuming information and learning about projects, so much of it was happening in video format, on TikTok. We figured, if we can't beat them, let's join them."
This human-centered approach carries inherent vulnerability, as putting faces front and center leaves no room to hide behind polished presentations. However, the duo believes this transparency is precisely what makes their approach effective. "Research shows it really works," Gabby continues. "Content featuring real human faces gets a lot more engagement. And in a moment where so much of what we see online is AI-generated or slop, showing our actual selves felt like the most human, honest thing we could do."
The format also challenges the common fear that explaining design work somehow diminishes its creative impact. Lauren strongly disagrees with this perspective, stating, "Great design, to me, is always strategic. It should never be overly intellectual, pompous, or hard to understand. I think people love hearing the stories behind design. I think it makes them more interested in the work and more impressed with the thinking and care that goes into the things they see."
Handling client confidentiality remains a crucial consideration in their approach to showcasing strategy work. "We work on a lot of really sensitive projects, from new product innovations to entirely new companies operating in stealth," Lauren explains. "Because of that, we don't share projects that clients aren't ready or comfortable to share publicly. We don't share proprietary IP or sensitive business and product information. We don't show brand strategy frameworks."
Lauren elaborates on their philosophy regarding client storytelling: "A lot of the strategic work we do is crafting the story the brand wants to tell to the world. When we talk about the strategic approach of a project, we're often telling the same story the brand is trying to broadcast to its audience. In other words, what we share in our case studies should be the same story anyone can find on the brand's website, campaigns, and social content. It should be the story that shines through in every aspect of the brand, from the design system to the photography to the copywriting."
The new website format reflects the collaborative dynamic between Gabby, who leads design, and Lauren, who leads strategy. The video pop-ups mirror their working relationship and cross-disciplinary collaboration. "At the very least, it's our attempt to mirror it," Gabby says. "Mostly it's a way to spotlight more of what Lauren does; strategy makes up half of our business offering. While Lauren leads strategy and I lead design, we both cross over into each other's disciplines because we believe they're stronger together than isolated."
For Lauren, who admits she "got used to keeping quiet and having my work stay under the radar," the new format has been transformative. "Our old website made it impossible to show all the naming we did, all the collaborations we worked on with other studios, and even how diverse our client list really is. We wanted to make sure things were different with this new site."
Regarding the potential industry impact of their innovation, both designers maintain realistic expectations while expressing enthusiasm for their experiment. "We don't know yet if this shift will lead to more business or change how people value strategy, but we wanted to try something new," Gabby says. "It's a fresh format for us to play with, and we've been pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoy making them. Once we get past the part where we have to see our own faces, of course."
Lauren shares similar sentiments about their venture into content creation: "It's been fun to practice something new, even if content creation wasn't on SK's bingo card for this year. We hope people have fun learning about the project. We hope they get interested in the amazing businesses our clients have built. And we hope that people see how great strategy and design are when they're put together."
While it remains uncertain whether this approach will fundamentally transform the traditional case study format across the design industry, Super Keen has created something both rare and inspiring. Their innovative format successfully serves both their work and their audience without compromising strategic rigor or creative magic, making it a noteworthy development worth industry attention and potential adoption by other design studios.
