Watermelon Creative’s Sarah Swindell, Gemma Aveling and Sarah Pearson on the key to fruitful client relationships

To kick us off, what would you say is Watermelon Creative’s core areas of expertise?
Sarah Swindell, Founder & MD, Watermelon Creative: Watermelon Creative Ltd are best known for consumer product solutions, softlines and fashion. There are three sectors to the Watermelon Creative business, the first is our Core – style guides, trend guides, supplements, alongside branding and packaging solutions. The second is our trend forecasting service Slice, where we support companies such as Hasbro, Peanuts and The Pokémon Company. We also offer Watermelon Creative Consult, where we have worked alongside several big licensors and retailers, utilising background skills and expertise.

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!