We recently connected with Dragan Babic and have shared our conversation below.

Dragan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

This is the biggest flop of my life. One night over beers at the time when I was thinking of starting my agency, the name “Superawesome” popped into my head. It seemed so silly and comforting because I was obviously scarred shitless of starting a business with nothing more than unfounded optimism. Late on I came up with an even better idea which was to shorten it to “sprawsm” in order to get the .com domain.

Little did I know what kind of trouble I was getting into. First of all, Superawesome is a long word which sucks for logos. Second of all, have you ever had to spell out your company’s name over the phone to a bank teller? How about your email address, which contains a weird shorthand version of it?

Yeah, it’s no fun.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I got into design through skateboarding and graffiti. It was kind of an escape because I never saw myself making something impactful by doing regular jobs, which was always been my main driver. I like to see myself as an agent of change, which design has enabled me to be for a long time.

Later on in my career, when I realized I’m not a very good designer, I re-focused on something which came a bit more naturally to me, which is working with people and enabling them to be their best at what they do. I did that through Superawesome, which is a design agency which I founded back in 2007. and where I still work at now.

I never bought into the aesthetic part of design, probably because I was shit at it. What I appreciated the most in design is the fact that it’s a process of problem discovery, and problem solving. The discovery is something I’m very good at, the solving part I learned to delegate to other people who can do a fat better job than me.

The reason i made it this far is because I was always honest. With clients about what we can do for them and how much it will cost, with employees about how much we can pay them and what kind of opportunities they can find at Superawesome, and with myself about where my boundaries are and how capable I am to stretch them.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had a major issue with the “I’ll do it” mentality, which is not so uncommon actually. I really had to work hard to push back on this instinct to control everything and learn to delegate properly. For me this was a challenge as well, as I learned that delegation is not simply telling someone to do something. You have to enable them to complete the work, and set them up for success beforehand as well.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

While I still call myself a designer — because I do participate in design – I did experience an epiphany when I realized that I didn’t have to be a designer in the traditional sense of the word, in order to participate in the act of designing things.

Once I understood that I can contribute to the design process, and affect outcomes in ways other than individual contribution and production work, I fell in love with design all over again.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://draganbabic.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/draganbabic/
• Twitter: https://x.com/draganbabic

Image Credits
All images are mine