Opinion

This month, we celebrate our fourth anniversary of being employee-owned, having transitioned to an Employee Owned Trust in 2021. In what has become a semi-regular annual tradition our MD, Bella, has been pondering the changes we've experienced and lessons learned along the way.

Becoming employee-owned is a significant step for any business. For many, it marks the start of a new chapter, one rooted in shared purpose, long-term thinking and the ambition to build a deeper, more inclusive culture. But the structural transition is only the beginning, part of an ongoing evolution which needs care and attention, alignment and engagement to succeed.

When a business transitions to employee ownership, it marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter. But, while the shift to employee ownership creates tremendous potential, it's important to recognise that structure alone won’t automatically enhance company culture, strengthen market position or boost engagement.

Celebrating the unique characteristics of any brand is a powerful way to communicate difference and create a sense of distinctiveness in the market. In this blog, Head of Design Jon celebrates what makes him distinct and how it influences the way he approaches the work of identity.

Since transitioning to employee ownership in 2021, we’ve been quietly (or not so quietly) on a journey to empower our team members and elevate our employer brand through personal brand building.

When I’m asked what I do for a living, or introduced to a new client, I’m guilty of giving a bit of a generic response – something along the lines of “I manage projects” or “I keep timings and budgets on track”. But, each time I hear myself give a default response like this, I cringe!

2023 ushered in a plethora of innovative CSS features to cater to the demands of contemporary web development, notably aiming to enhance the flexibility and expressiveness of stylesheets. Our Senior Developer, Greg, shares his take on the benefits of some cutting-edge CSS features and how they offer unique advantages to both web developers and designers.

It's not far off 20 years I've been working in design but dealing with the pre-match nerves before a presentation (big or small) is still very real. I had hoped it would be much easier by now and although practise does help, there's an art to channelling the inevitable surge of adrenaline that I'm still learning to master but here are a few tips I've learned along the way...

We are operating in a candidate-driven market. The rise of purpose as a means to attract customers is now being matched on the candidate side. This shift represents an opportunity for brands to align their customer & employer brand and ensure that they become talent attractors and retainers.

Crafting a successful digital marketing strategy requires a delicate blend of art and science.

One of my favourite adages about business finance includes the phrase “Cash is King”, but I wonder if from a broader corporate perspective, maybe “culture is king”.

Neatly fitting into ten points, here’s a round up of my learnings as we pass our two and a half year anniversary of being employee owned.

By embracing the artistry of design, storytelling, and user experience, you can create a digital masterpiece that not only ranks high in search results but also captures the hearts and minds of your audience.

All businesses change over time: markets shift, new products get launched, businesses grow and, sometimes, they pivot. There's no one-size-fits-all approach to reflect these changes in your business, but asking why the change needs to happen is the first step to determining how to represent it

Sophie shares how our Beautifully Effective® approach translates into the role of accounting, and ensures that everything and everyone is working together in harmony.

In this installment of our Beautifully Effective® journals, Greg shares insights on simplicity and subtlety, an optimised approach to development, and how the collective mantra infuses everything we do as a team.

As designers, our role can be incredibly complex. For Natalie, our senior designer, it's only through a deep understanding of the challenge that our work be truly Beautifully Effective®. Find out how discovery and designing with purpose helps us elevate creativity whilst solving the real problem.

How do you communicate the adoption of employee ownership as a positive move? How do you use your organisation's vision and culture to align and empower your teams? How will you unlock the potential of employee ownership to accelerate growth and the sustainability of your organisation?

Continuing our series, Harry (our Strategy & Creative Director) shares his slightly uncomfortable history with Beautifully Effective®, and how it has come to represent the responsibility we all share when handling our client's most precious asset – their brand.

As part of our Beautifully Effective® series our Founder & MD, Bella, shares her thoughts on how empathy and collaboration create the perfect environment for delivering Beautifully Effective work through great relationships and cultural connections.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) - an unrequested yet endlessly helpful pal.

Beautifully Effective® is a mindset we apply to everything we do, so it can be tricky to define. In this blog, part of our ongoing series of articles on Beautifully Effective, Nicole, our Head of Delivery shares 5 ways we’ve been effective, beautifully.

Continuing our Beautifully Effective® series, our Head of Digital, Matt shares his insights into how a Beautifully Effective approach to digital services and development can help brands better achieve their goals.

In the first instalment of our Beautifully Effective® series Jon, our Head of Design, gives his view on how Beautifully Effective® helps anchor creative work by highlighting the problem that needs to be solved and establishing the boundaries to work within and push against.

Strategy – a word we throw around these days. A word that has come to mean a bunch of different things. Misunderstanding strategy’s value to our process often contributes to an assumption that it’s a luxury. We view it as a necessary tool that helps underpin many of the most fundamental choices we make with our clients.

What are the benefits of using one agency for three highly specialised disciplines: brand strategy, visual identity, and digital?

What is it about the photography of your people that creates a powerful brand connection?

Brand launch campaigns can be tough, you need to consider your messaging, the channels you use and the timing to ensure it’s successful and can evolve.

Web accessibility is essentially making website or app experiences more accessible to a wider audience, regardless of disability type or impairments.

It’s important to learn from experiences and here is how Salad do it.

Developing a new brand identity is an exciting journey. But how do you share the vision with your team and ultimately create internal brand ambassadors? Here are our top tips for crafting a memorable internal campaign.

As an agency with a reputation and heritage rooted in beautiful design and years of expertise, we thought we’d share a few thoughts about the value of product packaging.

With so much conflicting literature surrounding the entrepreneurial path, the world of successful business can be testing to navigate. Having worked with entrepreneurs from start-ups to global corporations, we've put together our favourite reads by those who've made it to the top.

10 techniques we’ve adopted to ensure our digital work is Beautifully Effective® in design and SEO

As an agency we often ask for client testimonials in order to gather an honest insight into the work we do. But this Valentine's, we've turned the tables to offer a few kind words about our clients, partners and friends…

In the second instalment of our findings from Food Matters Live, we focus on the power of personalisation.

This November we attended the annual Food Matters Live conference to hear about the latest insights and successful case studies at the forefront of the food futures movement.

With the new regulations coming into place on May 25th 2018, we outline what GDPR could mean for your business.

Having been through all sorts of different pitching processes in my time, I wanted to have an honest conversation about how to make good choices.

For sales people, life on the road (or train) can be considered a complete pain. That is, unless you have a first-in-class, arabica-bean tasting trail already mapped out.

Bella shares why beauty can give you the advantage with top tips for building a beautiful business…

For those unfamiliar with our industry, agencies are low margin businesses and the only thing we have to sell is our time.

Taken from my regular class at the General Assembly, here’s a handful of my top tips to help you increase your email marketing open rates.

Most days in an agency you will hear someone bemoan ‘they are a nightmare’, followed by a frustrated ‘why can’t they just X..’. They are talking about a client and in this sentence, X equals ‘behave like we want them to’.

A round up of some of our favourite business cards and why they continue to be so important.

International Women's Day feels like a good time to share a few thoughts about my own experience as a female principal.

Having got ‘up close and personal’ with Mulberry’s inner-workings, our FD Andy Brown contemplates the outlook for the future in the last of this 4-part instalment.

Having got ‘up close and personal’ with Mulberry’s inner-workings, our FD Andy contemplates the highs and lows of the brand’s well-publicised journey and the outlook for the future in a 4-part instalment.

Having got ‘up close and personal’ with Mulberry’s inner-workings, Financial Director Andy Brown contemplates the highs and lows of the brand’s well-publicised journey in a 4-part instalment.

Having got ‘up close and personal’ with Mulberry’s inner-workings, Financial Director Andy Brown contemplates the highs and lows of the brand’s well-publicised journey in a 4-part instalment.

Gemma shares what it’s like to make the decision to change your life and start a new career from scratch.

Typography is an art, purposed with arranging type to make written language legible and appealing for its readers.

Following the article we wrote for The Drum recently, here we distill the 12 points it takes to write a cracking creative brief for your marketing agency or team.

Responsive web design is the biggest shift that we have experienced for creating websites. In the latest issue of Web Designer Magazine, Adam, Tom & Brandon share their experience.

There is no single colour system that is suitable for all design projects. The following guide sheds some light on a subject that effects almost every job that passes through our studio.

For those after something new to listen to, Jon shares his favourite podcast subscriptions.

With so much competition and tighter marketing budgets, today’s businesses are under tremendous amounts of pressure to demonstrate results. But are you measuring successes in the right way?

There is a lack of women in creative and digital industries and the statistics aren’t good.

The choice of digital channels is ever increasing, but email marketing continues to be one of the most effective. So, how can we improve the performance of our email campaigns?

The planning that goes into a photoshoot is arguably the most important part of the shoot. You’ve defined the brief, the desired outcome and the budget, so now it’s time to start planning.

Shining a spotlight on three great tools that inspire children to explore the exciting world of computer programming, and teach them the basics in the process.

There is no strict set of rules for project management, but here are a few tips we live by.

The type of binding you choose should be determined by three factors: function, aesthetic and budget. This guide will give you an insight into each binding technique, the cost, and suggest the best uses for each method.

In the UK, we’re currently creating jobs in the digital sector faster than we can fill them. This presents an immediate problem for businesses needing to find skilled people, and could cost the UK economy £2bn per year going forward.

How one word could change your future. The importance of selecting the right name for your business.

Scamping allows us to visually explore ideas that creatively solve problems