Dream Teams: Sanderson Design Groups’s Gabrielle Sims and Claire Vallis

What’s key to making the relationship between Sanderson’s commercial and creative teams successful?
Gabrielle: It’s key to align both sides towards shared goals. Collaboration hinges on clear communication, mutual understanding of each team’s roles, and integrating both perspectives early in the process.

Claire: Having a strong working relationship with our commercial team is non-negotiable.

Do you find creatives have useful commercial-strategy insights as much as commercial teams have creative ideas?
Gabrielle: Absolutely. Creatives offer valuable strategy insights because they understand the behaviour, trends and emotional connections that drive brand loyalty. Their focus on storytelling, design and user experience shapes products and campaigns that resonate and can drive demand and brand affinity… They offer ideas that align with consumer desires, while commercial teams ensure these ideas are practical and meet market demands. Combining both leads to a more effective strategy and helps drive business results.

Claire: The commercial teams bring market knowledge, sales data and insights about consumer needs, competition, and revenue goals. Their understanding of market dynamics can help steer creative work toward products and concepts with strong commercial potential. This knowledge is a powerful tool in the creative process, not designed to control but to expand our horizons.

What recent launch shows why this approach to relationships is a winning one?
Claire: A great example is our work with Ruggable. The commercial team identified a market-leading, boundary-pushing brand whose aesthetic perfectly blends with our brands – in this case, Morris & Co. and Sanderson. Through working with the fantastic team at Ruggable, we’ve created collections that honour our legacy and historical designs from the archive, reinterpreted in new ways for rugs that blend seamlessly in contemporary homes.

Gabrielle: For me, this isn’t just about a single instance; it’s about weaving this approach into the very fabric of our work. A fundamental aspect for me includes wash-ups, data analysis, and thoughtful reflection before and after partnerships or launches. Understanding what works and whom we target can create a clearer vision and output. This clarity emerges from a blend of both creative and commercial input.