Hello,

If you take anything from this, let it be that, “When everything is the same, different is the greatest of opportunities."

Everyone who knows me knows me as the ceo of Handsome. I started Handsome almost 12 years ago with a few friends. Back then, I wanted to bring the ingredients of great creative work together and pursue building a practice and a brand and a business around them. One of those ideas was staying nimble and fluid enough to constantly experiment and adapt. It’s now time for the most significant evolution yet.

Looking around at where we’ve come over the last decade of innovation and design, I feel uninspired. The most popular strategy, by far, has become one of optimizing and scaling sameness. The world’s smartest and most talented creatives and problem solvers are focused on polishing the status quo. Everything looks the same, behaves the same, thinks the same, and feels the same.

When everything is the same, different is the greatest of opportunities. So, I propose we leave this in the past and focus on turning the next ten years into a new golden era of innovation and creativity — that we use our imagination to improve the fortunes of the people and businesses inhabiting our shared world.

Today, we say farewell to Handsome and launch our contribution and commitment to this effort — Raw Materials.

Raw Materials is a whole new design company purpose-built to champion creativity in product design — the design of the tools and touchpoints that drive how we experience the world. A place committed to finding the best talent in the world and helping them do their lives' best work.

This is a big change and we’ve been working at it for a while. We’ve built an incredible team of strategists, designers, technologists, and creative people from many walks of life who are all focused on this one goal.

We are also incredibly grateful and lucky to have likeminded client partners joining us on this new journey — Meta, Peacock, Saronic, Peddle, JPMorgan Chase, and others. We appreciate you.

This will take bold leaders. They will shape the next decade, lead and redefine their industries, and ultimately reap their well-deserved rewards.

Reach out, and let’s talk creativity. The real risk is not trying.

john@therawmaterials.com

John Roescher

CEO, Handsome

CEO, Raw Materials