Most businesses understand and acknowledge the important part good design plays in the success of their brand or product. Get it wrong and it could be damaging to your brand.
It is crucial to work with an agency that really ‘get it’ – one that gets to know you as an individual, your business sector and ultimately what your end goal is so that you can work together to ensure your communications are having the most impact possible and reaching the correct audience.
Companies that view their design agencies as a supplier rather than a collaborator and an extension of their own team are, in our view, missing a trick. The risk: a predictable and static end result. The relationship between client and agency should not just be about a transaction of money in exchange for design work. A good working relationship genuinely gets better results. The design process needs to be inclusive; by working together as a team, it allows the client and agency to bounce thoughts off each other, which in turn creates ideas that challenge convention and result in concepts that the client might not even have considered. This isn’t something that happens overnight but over time, by building a trusting relationship. Once the partnership has been established and the opinion of the agency is respected, it becomes the job of the agency to challenge the client further.
This has certainly been our experience at Silverback Studios. A Sussex-based kitchenware company wanted to bring the Hammer Stahl knife brand to the UK. With years of success in the USA, they saw a gap in the UK market and asked us to create a launch campaign and branded communications. However, we felt that there was an opportunity to develop a new brand name for the company as well as the product.
Our idea of going back to basics helped inspire us with a new name and strapline: Flint & Flame, Essential Elements of Healthy Eating. We created a logo and visual identity for the brand. Fast forward five years and the brand has become a household name and a leader within their market. Our relationship with them continues to be strong. They rely on us and consider us to be an extension of their own team. Last year we were delighted to work with Flint & Flame and celebrity chef and Brand Ambassador, Monica Galetti to brand her own set of knives – The Galetti Range.