Monastic

A humble design practice

Monastic is the umbrella for Lucas Cherkewski’s professional work, solo and with friends.

Here’s what we value:

  1. We do few things, well.
  2. We know that everything we do impacts people. As a result, we meet and work with those affected by our work, as dignified equals.
  3. We’re conscious and deliberate about why we exist—what and how we work flows clearly from that why.
  4. We don’t do work we don’t believe in, because we recognize that association is endorsement.
  5. We work with other people, but without too many layers—ours is a model of independent collaborators.
  6. We work alongside smart, extremely capable people who we can consider friends.
  7. We have a physical presence: in each others’ lives, in the lives of those we serve or work with, and in our community.
  8. We value sustainability and continuity. We’re not indispensable, but people work with us because we do excellent work. Furthermore, the planet isn’t hurt by our success.
  9. We value enduring quality—even if at our short-term disadvantage.
  10. We’re not precious about process or tools—we focus on outcomes, achieving them however best suits the situation. That said, everything we do is informed and constrained by our values: though we adapt our approach, we insist on respecting some ethical lines.
  11. We deliver concrete value—people walk away satisfied, without needing to justify their experience or expense.
  12. We do enough to get by, happily.
  13. We enable others, facilitating their success.

Here are the kinds of problems we tend to tackle:

Here are the products we produce: