Creatives Beware! - Anonymous employee BSTRO Employee Review

I've been employed with the company for more than 10 years and since I started working there I haven't looked back. Bstro has been a place where you can truthfully be yourself and make you feel at home. Hard work, dedication and creativity are very much respected, acknowledged and rewarded. Also this is a great place to work if you are a team player, as all of your design work is going to be constructively critiqued and touched by many members of the team, from junior designers to upper management. Everyone has a voice and in turn your design will be better. The atmosphere is great as well, lots fun to be had, and if you are on top of your work and deadlines you can take a power nap, stroll outside for a walk of inspiration, play a trivia game with coworkers at lunch or even grab a beer at the end of the day. The benefits are great and salary is on par with other smaller agencies.

The cons are really general to all agencies. Design work can be stressful, my teacher used to say "You get the juice out of the orange if you squeeze it". So if you get stressed easily, then maybe its not a best fit. If you don't leave your ego at the door you might have harder time adjusting working with a team, and having your design work finished by other members. Some folks have hard time letting go their 'baby'. If you don't have a good grasp of importance of deadlines and good work etiquette you will have a harder time. Respect if earned, not given. Not all work is going to be super fun and exciting, there are some production work needed to be done as well on regular basis. So if you come fresh of school thinking you will be doing just fun design you will have harder time adjusting.

BSTRO is a small creative agency which has been around for well over 10 years, so it isn't just a flash in the pan. It has offices in SF, as well as Vancouver and NYC, so the focus is national and international - not just local. It's small size means that a motivated and talented person can step in and participate in projects at a level that may not be available in larger corporate establishments. It is informal in nature by design, and if someone has a voice, they can be heard. Learning opportunities are there for folks who take the initiative and step up with their ideas. Salaries are competitive and benefits are above par, especially for a company of this size. They have generous time off policies. The folks you work with in all three offices really are talented and GREAT.

There have been some management issues in the past, but the company seems to have learned from them, addressed them and is moving forward. Change isn't always easy and the agency world is shifting big time - at least BSTRO is making the effort to up its game, fail forward and look at new opportunities.