We're a design and innovation agency

Brands often feel a responsibility to have the answers to their problem already defined as they approach an external agency for advice. This is often very well-meaning, but it restricts the ability of the agency to consult and do the right thing over the thing that has been asked for.

Instead, we spend time with our partners in the problem space for longer. Yes, it can feel like a backwards step, but often the solutions are quicker, more creative and deliver a better outcome.

Customers engage with brands over a host of media, marketing and digital touch-points. Crafting and understanding that experience such that we can persuade the individual to take the actions they want is the goal we are working towards.

The visual design of course has to be beautiful and well-considered, but a beautiful design that is not useful can never be truly beautiful.

Software systems need to be able to pivot and change shape as your business and market demands it.

Thinking in terms of projects fundamentally hinders this ability. Projects are often fixed. Fixed scope, fixed price, fixed time. These hard parameters often lead to poor engineering standards – but importantly drives a lack of focus on what really matters. Delivering outcomes.

Think instead of your software as a product which is continually improved and it will always be adaptable and drive the outcomes you need as your market shifts in the future.

Often businesses want to change a lot all at once when replacing old systems. However often we find only a fraction of the existing system holds value to the organisation. The majority is either legacy or not used by customers.

If we change the most valuable things first, we will see a greater commercial return faster. Why change 100 things when you can change the right 10 things and see even better results?

Initiatives driven by the needs and wants of internal teams need backing up with insight and evidence from your customers, your market and your commercial data.

Projects that only have an internal lens will not be as effective as those that are insight-driven and based on the wider needs of the organisation and the real needs of your customers. So we strive to validate your beliefs our ideas and with real people at every point in our relationship.

The history books of digital system replacement are littered with over-ambitious software projects that failed.

Sometimes ‘big bang’ software projects don’t even get released because they are too unwieldy and affect too many elements of a business system.

Instead, modern organisations are developing architectural software approaches that allow the release of new experiences every day. Sometimes every hour. Working iteratively ensures that you are always able to respond to changes in the market and grow the business at pace.

Business priorities have a habit of changing all the time. Detailed scoping documentation is often irrelevant once a true appreciation of what is needed starts to emerge from working together.

There is little value in plodding along a project plan if we are heading in the wrong direction. That’s why developing an agile mindset to delivering the most important things in the order in which we discover them is vital to driving a successful outcome.