Design Bridge

Good design is not just about something looking beautiful. It’s also about how design can make a positive impact on your client’s business. Design effectiveness is celebrated each year at the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards, and last night we were at the 2016 awards ceremony. As well as having a brilliant team night out, we’ve returned to the studio armed with shiny new awards in Bronze, Silver AND Gold…

Inspired by the decadent Art Deco cocktail era, we’re proud to have been awarded Gold for our work on Tanqueray No.TEN – a gin that has surpassed sales expectations for our clients at Diageo, and become a true Design Bridge classic. If you’d like to find out more, take a look at the design effectiveness case study on the DBA’s website.

But that wasn’t all we won for our work with Diageo. For the past 3 years, we’ve been collaborating with different artists to create global gifting packaging for Johnnie Walker:

We’ve worked closely with each artist to bring their specialist craft to life on-pack, elevating the brand and creating a big, bold design to complement the big, bold flavour profile of the liquid inside.

2013 – Marcel Christ, Still Life Photographer

2014 – Makerie Studio, Paper Sculpture Artists

2015 – Arran Gregory, Sculpture Artist

You can also see a film of the Arran Gregory collaboration here:

Before our first design was launched in 2013 there were 45 markets using multiple packaging designs for the product. Our designs have been welcomed by the markets and 95 are now using our global design template, making it much more efficient for our clients. Combined with strong sales growth, Johnnie Walker has been recognised by the DBA with a Silver Design Effectiveness award. You can get the full story and figures here.

Lastly, but by no means leastly, we’re delighted with our Bronze award for the Fortnum & Mason Handmade Collection. The result of a close collaboration between us, our clients at Fortnum’s, and Timorous Beasties, our newly crafted packaging has been a huge success, resulting in a fantastic 155% profit growth and featuring in the likes of Harper’s Bazaar and Stylist magazines – a first for the range. You can read the full design effectiveness story here.

With 3 awards in hand, we continued celebrating well into the night…

A special ‘thanks’ to Birgitte and Chloe for taking a few snaps and capturing the evening.