Lewis Moberly is an independent branding consultancy that uniquely holds both the top award for Design Excellence (D&AD Gold) and the top award for Design Effectiveness (DBA Grand Prix). They work across brand strategy, corporate and brand identity, brand activation and packaging design and specialise in “elevation, repositioning and innovation”.
To take me behind the curtain and learn what makes them tick, I spoke to Mary Lewis, Creative Director at Lewis Moberly.
How was your company born and where are you based?
My partner Robert Moberly and I met in advertising. I was in my first job as a designer, he was a director of Foote, Cone & Belding.
We worked together on several projects and shared a vision to create a design consultancy which would champion design as an effective potent marketing tool by raising the creative bar.
What was the biggest challenge to the growth of your company?
Containing it. Quality was the goal not size, Maintaining an all-important culture and our own high standards.
Which was the first huge success that you can remember?
Winning the commission to redesign and position the full range of Asda Wines and Spirits. A pioneering concept which changed the norm of “pile it high and sell it cheap”. This was “Art for everyone”. Illustrators, photographers, sculptors, fashion designers and artists were all commissioned to create bespoke images for each wine.
There was a tight budget. So, we agreed to work on an approval only basis. The work was accepted unchanged and signed by each artist, giving them exposure and the supermarket an inspiring gallery. A win-win for all, not to mention the numerous awards the work won, including the coveted D&AD Gold.
The project introduced us to a host of brand owners. Hence the beginning of our now extensive experience in the category.
What is the biggest opportunity for you and your company in the next year?
To form strong partnerships and collaborations, extending our reach.
Can you explain your team’s creative process? What makes it unique?
Creativity is the drive shaft at LM and designers are a protected species. We ensure they are fed a varied diet and spared the excesses of jargon. They have to be actors and look to life, not design.
Our teams are flexible and fluid, highly competitive (echoing our clients) and a healthy mix of experienced professionals and inspirational youngsters. Each project team is bespoke, avoiding formula (which we all know is the death of creativity).
How does your team remain inspired and motivated?
Through collaboration and interaction, we have a vibrant culture which connects and sparks everyone.
Through respect and sensitivity for the creative persona. We are both fragile and sharp, practical and fanciful, considered and spontaneous. A heady mix of important tensions.
How has COVID-19 affected your company?
Enriching it by cultivating a more caring and collective culture. Looking out for each other and our world. Increased efficiency e.g. Less travel, more immediate interaction.
Which agencies do you gain inspiration from? Do you have any heroes in the industry?
Forever heroes like the late great Alan Fletcher. Peer group heroes like Super Union (a gathering of the industry’s best).
And homegrown heroes like Margaret Nolan (Denomination) Bruce Duckworth (Turner Duckworth) Zoe Green (Co-Partnership) Poppy Stedman (Popp Studio) Shaun Bowen (B&B).
What is the one tip that you would give the other agencies looking to grow?
Ask yourself why.
Finding the optimal size is a fine balance if creativity is the drive shaft.
Too small can be stifling and too big institutional.
Successful growth is built on great work, not size.
How do you go about finding new clients/business? (Pitching, work with retainers, etc.)
We have an established company with a track record and reputation. These are strong assets and lead to most of our new contacts. Clients take reassurance from work which demonstrates an understanding of recognisable problems, where we have succeeded with similar challenges, and relish a new one.
Good work generates its own alternatives, which is why the culture, motivation and ambience needed to create it, is so crucial.
What’s your one big hope for the future of the industry?
That as designers, we remember our unique and particular skills and protect them from the relentless seduction of technology, using it to enrich what we do, not replace what we do.
Do you have any websites, books or resources that you would recommend?
My current favourite “The Art of Explanation” by Ros Atkins.
I will also be adding the Michael Wolff biography “Leap Before You Look” to my repertoire.
As a young art student my boyfriend of the day, Philip Amis (son of Kingsley) went to Wolff Olins for an interview, (he got the job) and on returning to the depths of Camberwell (in those days) we were all agog to know what happened. Trance like, he said it was just amazing and, they even “had apples on the tables”. There’s culture for you.
