We’re happy being experts in our field. Where possible we are more than happy to work alongside other creative studios. We feel the best results can come from collaboration. As evidenced through our recent partnership with Dynamo on United Creatives.

Is there anything about what you did before that informed those three pillars?
Sarah S: After running Watermelon Ltd for nearly 10 years with Jonathan Sieff we then set up Watermelon Creative which I took ownership of in 2017. Before that, my background is very much manufacture and retail sector.

Sarah Pearson, Head of Design, Watermelon Creative: I began my career working for a trend forecasting company called Mudpie, who were later brought by WGSN. I then had the opportunity of working for a number of suppliers, therefore I fully understand the industry process from trend through to manufacture and retail.

Gemma Aveling, Studio Manager, Watermelon Creative: I’ve been an intergral part of the Watermelon Creative team for 14 years, managing studio workflows alongside our clients. We pride ourselves in nurturing our clients and creative team, so we can deliver the best possible creative solutions.

What’s kept you busy over the past year?
Gemma: We continue to work a lot with Mercis on Miffy, we’ve had the pleasure of working with them for over 18 years now. Sarah and the team are constantly amazing them with new trends and fresh ways of using and developing Dick Bruna’s assets, from trend guides to packaging and POS solutions.

Sarah P: We have been working with Cloudco Entertainment on some high fashion projects, which is a personal passion. I love it when we can push the creative boundaries.

We continue to deliver global trend guides to Hasbro and trend forecasting for Peanuts.

I imagine Miffy is an interesting creative challenge?
Gemma: It’s very pure and some of the graphics may feel simplistic, but it’s a tricky one because you have so many guidelines around keeping the purity and wonderful heritage of Dick Bruna’s core assets.

Sarah S: We created specific Miffy trend books China and Japan, which have been very successful. We work closely with the team at Mercis and feel like we’re very much part of their team. That’s the way that we like to work with as many clients as possible.

What is key to establishing these kinds of long-term fruitful relationship with clients?
Sarah S: It’s always about wanting to deliver the best and looking to develop a long-term creative relationship, delivering innovative solutions.

“We care about always delivering the best and our clients come back again and again.”

Gemma: Others include Hasbro, Warner Bros. Discovery, Peanuts, The National Gallery and Acamar Films to name but a few – and I think part of the reason for it is our dedication to brand immersion. We need to spend the time with the client to understand their brands so that we can deliver the best possible creative solutions.

Have you noticed any trends around what clients are asking for these days?
Sarah S: We’re all used to clients wanting smaller guides, but more frequently. Having said that, what’s happened in the last six months or so is that brands are recognising they really need to have good assets to start with and are investing in this work upfront. We feel this is integral and money well spent.

What gets projects off to a good start?
Sarah S: The first thing we do with a new client is spend time getting to know them and understanding their brand. For us, this is so important and usually the part of the project which takes the longest.

We listen and learn – because you need to get this initial stage right as it’s often the hardest bit. The second thing is to lean on our passions and skillsets…

Gemma: When working on a project, we always ensure we’ve got someone in-house that’s passionate about that brand and has the skillset to suit the job.

Before we wrap up, what fuels creativity for you guys?
Sarah P: We try and get out the office as much as we can. Trips to museums, shows and exhibitions. We even take inspiration from our personal hobbies, like gigs, festivals or theatre trips.

Sarah S: My creativity is fuelled by my team. We are lucky to have a really diverse creative team and we’re all very different, so we look at things from fresh angles.

I am also a visiting lecturer at Nottingham Trent University, and that’s great for creativity. I’m surrounded by young, inspiring students and they think about trends and forecasting in a different way – that always inspires me.

Gemma: We are very team driven and being together fuels our creativity. We’re completely studio based and working together like this means everybody can share ideas and be inspired be each other. Which is a great asset!

The post Watermelon Creative’s Sarah Swindell, Gemma Aveling and Sarah Pearson on the key to fruitful client relationships appeared first on Brands Untapped.

Maggy Harris, New Business Development Consultant, Dynamo: I think we’re stronger working collaboratively and it’s always good to explore new ideas. Dynamo had a lot of work on, so I suggested Steve have a chat with Sarah. Watermelon Creative and Dynamo are similar businesses and Sarah and Steve both have a great reputation and industry respect… Importantly, the skill sets of the two independent studios are very complementary. It made a lot of sense.

Steve Richards, MD, Dynamo: Our business has expanded from the moment we started. We’ve always tried to offer a broad spectrum of services. It’s been a relationship-based approach, rather than looking at things from a job-by-job basis. We want Dynamo to be a creative support service for whatever our clients need.

“United Creatives offers clients a one-stop solution that elevates the creative output we can deliver.”

When Sarah and I first started talking, we realised we had quite a few clients in common. We were being asked to pitch for the same jobs… We thought, instead of an ‘either/or’, we could offer something where a client’s requirements could be serviced more efficiently by the Dynamo and Watermelon Creative collaboration – and that’s what United Creatives is.

Sarah: Although there are synergies, we have different expertise and are known for different things. Some clients work with both of us, but in different ways. United Creatives offers clients a one-stop solution that elevates the creative output we can deliver.

Does this reflect what creative studios need to offer today to be competitive?
Sarah: If you genuinely collaborate, you can achieve exciting, innovative and unexpected solutions – and an outcome of greater depth than you’d achieve on your own.

It’s important to stress that Dynamo and Watermelon Creative both still exist as separate studios and separate businesses. So, what sort of projects make sense for United Creatives?
Sarah: United Creatives offers a new vision; we deliver creative materials that drive excitement and are 100% designed with commercial return in mind for the brand owners. It might be a client has a new brand or an evergreen favourite and they want fresh vision and a contemporary creative strategy.

“Good creative is indispensable to commercial success in this industry.”

They may still come to Dynamo or Watermelon Creative for creative skills they’ve always used us for, but they can use United Creatives collectively to holistically launch and build their brands in the right way. It’s not just about crafting beautiful style guides; it’s a more rounded offering.

Steve: It’s particularly relevant for evolving sectors that are newer to licensing, such as Museums and Heritage, Sport and Location-Based Entertainment. Our collective skillsets bring a vast array of creative competencies to a client’s disposal but with one point of contact rather than many.

Maggy: Good creative is indispensable to commercial success in this industry. It’s the life blood of licensing. United Creatives wants to provide a different way of doing things via this one-stop shop – covering everything from asset and IP creation, to live events and experiential services. We want to help bring some energy back to the industry and elevate quality.

“It’s not just about crafting beautiful style guides; it’s a more rounded offering.”

Sarah: It’s not easy for anybody in the industry right now, but by thinking about things differently – and working in a new collaborative way – together we can support our partners to move the market forward.

Steve: To be competitive today, brands need to use every tool in the creative toolkit; and United Creatives has a very large toolkit! There isn’t an area we can’t help licensors or licensees with… And the other important thing to say is the fact we can collaborate gives you an indication of how well our teams mesh and trust each other.

To wrap up, let’s dive into a case study! United Creatives recently crafted a series of brand toolkits for Historic Royal Palaces. Talk us through the project.
Maggy: The Point.1888, together with Historic Royal Palaces, wanted to expand the brand’s reach outside of their own retail. The brief was to inspire licensing partners to think of their brand as a true international franchise, with real opportunity outside of the souvenir and gift shop market.

Our pitch to them was… You’ve got 1,000 years of incredible history, so many options and so much material that it would be impossible to encapsulate the brand in a single guide. Let’s create a series of ‘collectible and interchangeable’ toolkits with ownable assets and masses of product and packaging inspiration. Historic Royal Palaces’ USP is actually their Unique Story Point rather than any one Unique Selling Point. The resulting creative guides have authentic, beautiful storytelling at their heart.

Steve: The heritage sector is an exciting area for us to explore because there’s a tendency for brands in that sector to follow a similar creative route. There’s a huge opportunity to look at the sector from a different perspective and thereby create exciting new branding solutions.

From a brand perspective, Historic Royal Palaces needed a really strong, core brand identity for licensing. What they have is thousands and thousands of stories – and thousands and thousands of visual representations of those stories. These provided the foundation for multi-purpose toolkits threaded together by a strong brand visual identity.

Sarah: What we identified and focused on is creative stories to engage consumers across key product categories, taking our inspiration from what is currently working at retail, trend forecasts – and Historic Royal Palaces’ brief – to provide unique, usable assets for licensees. We created three initial toolkits: Iconography, Elegance in Excess and Palace Stories. Each is aimed at different sections of the market and each focused on different stories.

Steve: A single style guide doesn’t always help brand building in any meaningful way… What United Creatives brought to Historic Royal Palaces is a new voice and design language. It will be continually used and expanded upon to give The Point.1888 and the Historic Royal Palaces brand teams the platform – and consistency of assets – to use globally.

It’s not just a style guide, it’s a practical retail and licensee-friendly brand and asset archive that can be added to for years to come.

It’s a cracking example. Thanks so much guys.

The post Sarah Swindell, Maggy Harris and Steve Richards on Watermelon Creative and Dynamo’s new collaboration: United Creatives appeared first on Brands Untapped.