ILVZ

The challenge

Growing pains

Íñigo López Vázquez started ILVZ Estudio almost by accident. After graduating, his US work visa never arrived, so he began freelancing from Puebla, Mexico. Within months, the work outpaced what he could handle alone. He teamed up with fellow designer Mariana Luna de la Cruz, and ILVZ was born — without them even realizing it. But the bootstrapped studio soon hit a wall. They were sacrificing profits to take on "cool" projects, then scrambling to find more work just to pay salaries. Quality suffered, deadlines slipped, and Íñigo knew something had to change.

"As time passed, I realized quality is the result of structured planning, serious business relationships, and comfortable budgets. We began to sacrifice our profits in order to take projects that could be cool. It's a vicious cycle that is hard to get out of."

— Íñigo López Vázquez, Director, ILVZ Estudio

Our operational findings

What we discovered

• No centralized project management — everything lived in scattered tools and ad-hoc workflows
• Pricing based on gut feeling rather than value, leading to unsustainable margins
• Sales and scoping lacked structure, causing ripple effects throughout every project
• No documented processes meant knowledge lived only in people's heads
• The studio was reactive — taking any project to pay bills rather than strategically choosing work
• Missing accountability framework left the team without clear ownership or forecasting ability

"Without so much order in our processes, I don't know how we could've handled going remote during the pandemic. When it was time for all of us to start working from home, the changes were barely felt because we had a structure that could support us and I'm grateful for that."

— Íñigo López Vázquez, Director, ILVZ Estudio

Results & highlights

What changed

• Raised rates by 20% by shifting to value-based pricing and structured budgets
• Doubled profit margin within the first year of implementing new operational practices
• Stayed 100% booked through the pandemic — the new structure made remote work seamless
• Built a centralized Notion-based PM system tailored to the studio's unique workflow
• Documented every step of project management so the team could operate autonomously
• Transitioned from reactive freelancing to an intuitive, process-driven design studio

"Hello Rachel (formerly Louder Than Ten) is a lot about seeing your practice from afar, re-learning it, and then starting again. It's quite liberating."

— Íñigo López Vázquez, Director, ILVZ Estudio

The future

Where they are now

Today, ILVZ Estudio is an elegant and process-perfect graphic design studio creating beautiful websites, typefaces, brands, and prints for clients across the globe — from Hong Kong to Amsterdam to Madrid. The team is happy, the work is exceptional, and the studio is built on a foundation that can sustain growth without sacrificing craft. Íñigo and his team continue to prove that with the right structure, small studios can do world-class work.