In 2020, during the first lockdown, we started building a brand from scratch. Not for a client — for ourselves. Storigraphic began as an idea conceived by our studio founders: a sustainable brand rooted in good design, UK manufacturing, and a genuine commitment to giving something back.

Five years later, it has had over 250 retail stockists including: many independents, Somerset House, Royal Academy, Selfridges, Barbican, Getty Museum, Papersmiths, Museum of the Home, National Galleries Scotland; it has sold to thousands of direct-to-consumer customers, recognised in industry awards, exhibited at international trade shows; and has had over 250 press features across titles such as Observer Magazine, Architectural Digest, The Independent, House Beautiful, Evening Standard, Financial Times, Prima, Metro, Home & Interiors, Good Homes, English Home, Good Housekeeping and Ideal Home.

The learning exceeded our expectations.

As designers, we have always understood brand. We understood how to build an identity that holds together across different media, how to write copy that sounds like a real person rather than a committee, how to design packaging that works at scale. What we had to learn — and learn quickly — was everything that has to work seamlessly in between: product development and manufacturing (sustainably in the UK), how a retail buyer and merchandiser actually decides what to stock, what a trade show stand needs to do in the first three seconds, what a Shopify product page genuinely needs to convert, how to price for wholesale margins without collapsing a DTC business, and what it takes to approach a retailer directly without sounding like you’ve sent the same email to many others.

Some of this knowledge exists in books and courses. Most of it, in our experience, you acquire firsthand by doing it — by packing your first trade show stand at all hours and being present at the event itself (from build to breakdown), by listening to your customers’ feedback, by reading a buyer’s rejection email carefully and understanding what it’s actually telling you, by analysing your metrics and realising that the product page you were proudest of has a thirty per cent bounce rate. And so much more.

We are not suggesting that every design studio should go and run its own brand. That can be a particular kind of expensive education. But we are saying that having done it has changed how we work with every brand client we take on.

We’ve formalised this into a service, Brand to Market, which is designed specifically for independent product brands who need more from a creative studio partner. If that sounds like it might be relevant to where you are, we’d be very happy to have a conversation.

In the meantime: if you’re building a product brand and have a question we might be able to help with, just ask. With five years dedicated experience of doing this means we have probably encountered it, and can help with your unique journey.

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Photography: Billie Scheepers for Superdrug’s ‘The Edit’ Magazine — featuring Storigraphic wrapping papers: Sweetpea, Lovebug, Bountiful Festive Bloom, Candy Hearts, Boho Red 3, Symphony 2 and 6.

Peace, equality and freedom.

#IWD2024

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#internationalwomensday #womenindesign #femalefounders #community #socialchange #inspireinclusion #equality #womenlifefreedom

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Fedrigoni 365

As with previous volumes, this 2023 edition of Fedrigoni 365 showcases a united collaboration of cross-disciplinary creatives with the core inspiration and theme this year being ‘love’.

Each calendar date focuses on the individuals/studio/agency’s interpretation of love, and the outcome is a beautiful collection of diverse artworks, uniquely printed, expertly finished and bound.

This year, we were assigned with the date 19 March, and our approach to the brief: ‘19 flowers for Mum. Happy Mother’s Day.’

Thank you, Fedrigoni — we loved being a part of the collaboration

We encourage everyone to purchase a copy via Counterprint — proceeds from each sale going directly to the British Heart Foundation.

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Peace, equality and freedom.

#IWD2023 #womenlifefreedom

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#internationalwomensday #community #socialchange #genderequal #embraceequity

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Introducing a new bespoke typographical series, the Character Collection.

An eclectic yet cohesive series that started out as a studio project which organically became a collaboration between us and our design family (paperware designers), Storigraphic.

The finished collection comprises 26 uniquely designed letter forms, developed for individual use as well as adapted to surface pattern designs, and applied to statement wrapping papers, greeting cards, stationery and eco wooden pin badges.

A full work study will be published soon.

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See the full retail collection here. 20% of sale profits from this particular series will go to homelessness charity, Crisis UK.

Type and form design by Minx Creative. Surface pattern, paperware and product design by Storigraphic.
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Peace and equality today, tomorrow, always.

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#internationalwomensday #IWD2022 #genderequality #breakthebias #peace #equality

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A tribute to wonderful Kitty

Kitty entered our studio and our lives back in 2009, by simply hopping in and looking around. A tiny kitten and yet full of character and so determined. She returned every day after that, and very quickly became an integral part of our work family.

Kitty provided laughter, love, purrs and years of pure joy to our studio.

Friends with practically every human that came her way, Kitty somehow had that super special appeal. Over the years, it wasn’t just us looking after her but most of our neighbours too.

She walked into all of our hearts, and never looked back.

Master of fluff, squisher of human hearts, we miss you and love you.

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Studio Kitty — 2009-2021

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WIWD 2020

Save the date and join Nic and Roz at Womentor International Women’s Day 2020 as London co-hosts with Astrid Stavro.

This is a first series of events to celebrate Womentor’s 2nd birthday and International Women’s Day 2020. Events will also be held in: Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Mexico City, Seoul and New York City…plus more to announce.

Friday 6 March 2020, 5-8:30pm at Fedrigoni UK, London Studio.

Tickets are free but limited and can be registered here.

Big thanks to our venue and hospitality sponsor Fedrigoni, UK.

#womentor #womentor2020 #internationalwomensday2020 #IWD2020 #design

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Fedrigoni 366

The Fedrigoni 366 calendar is now on sale.

Now in its third year, the beautifully designed book pulls together hundreds of creative masterminds (366 to be precise) to design the page of an assigned calendar day within the parameters of a restrictive brief.

It’s been a happy honour for our studio to contribute for the second year running and we encourage everyone to purchase a copy — proceeds from each sale will go to charity.

Grab your copy here from Counterprint.

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Designing Through the Years: Inside a Creative Agency

We are very happy to share our studio’s article feature with the Design Council:

Design Council’s key goal is to make life better by design. Since 1944 we have adapted and progressed dramatically in tune with the advances of technology. We have learnt that being agile welcomes change and with this insight, we wanted to explore the story of one of London’s design agencies, Minx Creative, to learn how a small team turned similar challenges into opportunities.

Roz Nazerian takes us through their journey:

Young, courageous and bold

When our new bank agreed to give us a start-up loan after two face-to-face meetings and reviewing our business plan, Nic and I felt happy. We still do when we speak about it. It’s archived and sits proudly on our studio’s timeline. At the ages of 25, we were both raring to run; shoot for the big stars but remain focused in how we feed our appetite and enthusiasm to design.

A typical design agency/consultancy/studio in the late 90’s was different to where we are now. Things were changing and we were at the start of fundamental (technological) industry shifts, its magnitude would affect many irreparably. We knew we had to navigate these changes and embrace the digital innovations unfolding around us.

Our micro-sized stature helped and challenged us equally. We had to plan out a streamlined model with our processes and methods as well as how we engaged/delivered our business. Small worked out well — our size and green industry experience helped us to identify the power of being super agile and adaptive.

As emerging founders, our path of learning ran in parallel with growth, we had much to learn, experience and eventually achieve. Every meeting, conversation, event, project contributed in adding to our knowledge bank which slowly and surely fed the sense of confidence we needed to keep pushing forward.

Over the next decade we experienced all types of business impacts (including a global financial crisis), each pushing our young minds to understand the depth of challenges and how best to resolve. We became well versed in keeping ahead (of serious impact). Our speed in identifying and delivering change became our advantage.

By 2009, we embarked on the next chapter.

Knowledge gained, knowledge shared

A new wave of emerging designers began this chapter. With them came fresh dynamic, creative input and personality. Their trajectory of growth and contribution kept us shifting gears. Our collective in-house knowledge alongside our external partners, provided a focused pathway for learning, training and encouragement. Whilst we had expanded our core team, we had also begun a mentoring platform which continues to this day.

The studio had grown organically, working with client organisations from varying backgrounds and on projects of all types and sizes. Much of our engaged work carried multiple tiers of delivery objectives and problem-solving, integrated projects and invested stakeholders. We continually defined and refined the types of projects that we were best suited to and vice versa.

Technological innovations continued to unfold at pace and we welcomed the positives that came with them. Our production processes were being continuously refined until tasks and elements became obsolete, affording us greater headspace to focus on project strategy and design thinking. This also allowed us to sharpen our studio’s deployment practice of planning, positioning, values and strategy.

We had already set a sustainability manifesto in 2007 which we were determined to realise (within the parameters of what was on offer at the time). The foundation for change existed across the country from previous years, we simply structured it within our core model. Today, it spearheads much of our decision-making and work processes.

Looking ahead, we continue to uphold our beacon of diversity and inclusivity. We welcome progress and covet betterment — we are learning even with wisdom in tow. We often discuss the journey of the studio, be it a project, client organisation, Mac model or software — the conversation is always rich in its narrative, it’s anecdotal, sometimes funny, sad or proud. Much may have happened over our time but our appetite for and to design has not budged since we started. It’s still big.

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