Bristol’s world-renowned product development agency Kinneir Dufort (KD), has launched a new initiative, XXEquals – the UK’s first majority female team designing products for women across the consumer, industrial and medical markets.
Fuelled by the growing need to design more female-centred products, and to improve the gender balance in the design industry, XXEquals is already working on projects including smart femcare solutions, sustainable period products, voice recognition software, and futures research.
KD has previously developed pioneering women-centred products including a revolutionary breast scanning bed.
Comprising a multi-disciplinary collective of KD experts – 75% of whom are women – XXEquals is pushing for better gender balance across product development, in a move which is set to potentially benefit millions of female consumers worldwide and KD’s global blue chip clients.
The initiative breaks new ground in the product design industry, and is helping to pave the way for young women interested in careers in product and industrial design.
KD’s CEO, Merle Hall, says: “We are incredibly proud to be the first UK consultancy in the product design industry with an arm which pro-actively focuses on products and experiences for women. It feels like there is truly a need to bring more women to the forefront of innovation and product design.
“XXEquals offers female-focused insight and an empathic design approach, resulting in innately intuitive products. We need to develop a deeper consideration of the physiological or psychological differences for female users.
“As an agency with a strong purpose – to design a better world – we feel it is our responsibility to instigate change. We are proof that a better gender balance is possible in the product design industry and we would love to support other businesses driving equality where possible.
“We’re not where we want to be yet, representative of the world around us, but we’re focused on our goals. It’s important to us to remember that men always need to be part of the solution too, so we draw on the brilliant expertise of our male strategists, researchers, designers, engineers and makers, who are well versed in allyship and also very engaged in the initiative.”
Around half of the world’s population is female and women buy 85% of household products, yet data shows only 5% of the product and industrial design industry is female.
With the femtech market predicted to reach $50 billion by 2025 and 93% of women currently buying over-the-counter healthcare products, the business case for gender balance in this industry is powerful.
Merle Hall continues: “Without expert female representation throughout the innovation and development process now, more opportunities will be missed to leverage real life experience and create brands and products which close the gap between assumption and reality.
“XXEquals launches as we are seeing women being adversely affected by Covid, and shortly after the issuing of a Government call-out for views to inform the new Women’s Health Strategy for England, which aims to change the male-by-default approach to health and care system.”
KD has longstanding partnerships to help solve the design industry’s gender balance issue. One is with Kerning the Gap, a campaign to encourage more women into leadership roles in the industry.
Founder, Nat Maher: “I think XXEquals will be highlighting an issue that has been long understood and long accepted, and it should be accepted no more. But also, what I think KD will do as pioneers is work with their peers to work out how they get better at it. KD wants change for the industry, and not just for itself. That is why XXEquals has my full and unbridled support.”
KD’s CDO, Craig Wightman adds: “As a man working in design, I have, for too long, felt uncomfortable about the number of situations I’ve observed or been directly involved with, where products used by women are conceptualised, designed and developed by men. That is not to say that male designers cannot design well for women, but why would you not want to have your audience and users better reflected in your design and decision-making team? It just makes sense.
“I have always felt that it’s important to have respect for the people we are designing for. It is about empathy and putting yourself in the shoes of the product user. Having a more gender-balanced team is an important part of achieving that goal.”
The below XXEquals podcast episode is now available:
Twitter: twitter.com/xxequals
Instagram: www.instagram.com/xxequals
For more information visit: www.XXEquals.com and www.kinneirdufort.com.
Over the last year, we’ve learnt the hard way that businesses who can react, pivot and adapt are far more likely to survive than those who rigidly remain on a single-track traditional strategy. In the current climate, this means that significantly more pressure now lies on business teams who are responsible for effective use of budget and creativity. There is a need for them to pull off greater impact for less budget, or an entirely new commercial direction with a leaner team.
It is a huge challenge and now more than ever, we’re seeing the true value of experience coming into play. You’ve no doubt heard the phrase ‘nobody ever got fired for buying IBM’, it’s been bandied around the business world since the 1970s and has numerous different interpretations. But what it essentially comes down to is the importance of choosing the safe pair of hands when bad things happen, the value of going with the established choice that’s less likely to fail because it’s been around for longer and has been thoroughly tested.
The original saying obviously referred to software (and is since horribly outdated) but it does still ring true today for people in the creative industry. Quite simply, in these difficult social and economic circumstances, now is the time to be working with seasoned experts, those with many years of creative and commercial experience to draw upon to solve the challenges faced by businesses.
So here are our three core reasons for choosing experience right now to move your business forward:
1. Speaking the same language
Senior creatives have been around the block enough times to speak the same language as any client. They can demonstrate empathy for how work needs to be sold in, the challenges they might face and can help manage stakeholders. That’s not to say, of course, that more junior members of team don’t bring huge benefits to the table – knowledge, enthusiasm, a valuable different perspective that comes with youth, to name just a few. But when times are tough, you just can’t underestimate the power of being able to draw on previous experiences and turn that understanding into action.
2. Fewer and faster
Experience means there’s no need to layer teams when working on a project, which is vital when dealing with reduced budgets or rapidly changing projects or timescales. Teams can be kept really lean with senior team members doing the work rather than overseeing it. This delivers cost and time efficiencies to clients that they will really appreciate. In most creative agencies, the senior members of the team tend to be light touch with clients – there if you need them, but not directly involved on a day-to-day basis. At Sparro House, ours are hands on – no bloated hierarchy, just experience put to good use.
3. Flexible innovative thinking
Experienced industry veterans can and should, at the right time, challenge the thinking of clients and inspire them to take a different direction if it’s the right thing for the business. Don’t make the mistake of confusing experience with outdated thinking or a safe pair of hands with a boring or traditional approach. The right seasoned veteran can uniquely combine agile out-of-the-box thinking with the confidence to act that only comes with years of experience. Now is the time for innovation to flourish as businesses try a new direction but any risks can be tempered by placing creative responsibility into the hands of those who’ve been there and done that.
In the two and a half years since launching, Bristol-based Haio has gone from strength to strength, making their mark as one of the fastest growing local UX and development agencies in Bristol and the surrounding area.
Now the team have taken an exciting new step, relaunching the brand – including taking on a new name; Unfold.
Making the complex simple…
Making the most complex things seem simple has always been the super-power behind the Haio team – helping growing digital businesses to create world-class user-experiences and digital platforms. The team works under the belief that with the right people and tools, anything is possible.
So what do Unfold actually do?
In short, the team build websites, web apps and digital platforms for start-up and scale-up businesses. They help entrepreneurs and business leaders develop world-class experiences by bringing expertise across four areas:
So why the change?
Working closely with fellow BCI member Sue Bush from Touchpoint Design, Haio needed a fresh platform and a clearer market positioning to continue growing alongside it’s clients scaling businesses. The team sought-out their raison d’être and in uncovering this essence, a better definition of who they are and what they do. Unfold is the culmination of this journey and sets the scene for their next exciting chapter.
So, what can you expect from Unfold?
Unfold’s mission is to empower and propel entrepreneurs and their businesses to the next level.
They’re also making their expertise from across the team more accessible, offering free, no obligation 1 hour consultancy sessions with a product or technical lead, to help talk through some of the challenges you might be facing. You can book a call any time through their website https://bit.ly/3oHJu70.
In addition to this, they’re on a mission to share their knowledge and break down barriers in understanding regarding tech development, startup success and digital platform scaling. This is why their new website has a fantastic new Resources Hub, dedicated to entirely free articles and reports on everything in the startup ecosystem – from fundraising through to scaling your technology.
Win a free UX audit for your business
Thirdly, to celebrate the launch they’re also running a small competition – offering 5 free UX audits to UK businesses. This is a chance to have a professional UX designer review and recommend some approaches to a specific challenge you may be facing with your digital product. You can find out more about that here https://bit.ly/3pFIrWx
Noisy Little Monkey has won a HubSpot Impact Award for the design and build of a new website for global communications agency, Indicia Worldwide.
The international HubSpot Impact Awards recognise HubSpot partners for client work which goes above and beyond – hundreds of HubSpot agencies apply for one of these awards every year and Noisy Little Monkey are over the moon to be awarded for their web design project and CMS migration with Indicia Worldwide.
The judges feedback said, “The results are fantastic. It’s clear from Indicia Worldwide’s video testimonial that you were a true HubSpot partner to their business. Indicia had already purchased HubSpot, but worried they wouldn’t get the right value out of it. They brought in experts to fill their gaps, and were shown the power of HubSpot’s platform. This is a perfect example of how HubSpot partners bring value to their clients.”
Helping clients get the most from HubSpot is Noisy Little Monkey’s mission. So when Indicia Worldwide approached the team for help migrating their CMS from WordPress to HubSpot, Noisy Little Monkey jumped at the chance to reimagine the site and focus it on the inbound buyer journey.
This approach generated brilliant results for the client; in a six month YoY comparison, Indicia Worldwide saw a 200% increase in organic traffic and a 1250% increase in new leads through their site.
You can read the full case study and view the testimonial here.
If you’re a HubSpot customer, or considering HubSpot, and would like the support of an award-winning agency to help you unlock more from the platform, get in touch with the team today.
Web design is an area I am familiar with. However, it’s the fine detail of web design that makes a website special, and the less obvious details are often the most crucial.
Officially I am a web developer, here in the fine city of Bristol, so an appreciation of web design is part of my job. I also design sites occasionally and make creative calls on others’ designs.
Even so, there is nothing more annoying for a web designer than for a web developer to build a site and ignore some of their design aspects due to tunnel vision whilst building the site.
I am definitely guilty of this and therefore one of my aims for 2021 is to undertake some training in the world of web design. I am going to be kinder to my fellow designers!
I will be looking to undertake some training, follow some tutorials and also read up on the subject more regularly.
I will undertake my training and inspiration from a number of sources:
– Creative Bloq – These guys have a good blog detailing all the relevant trends for this year and also a huge amount of useful information.
– Web Designer Depot – Having briefly looked at this site before it has been something I have wanted to explore for a while.
– CodeCademy – I used CodeCademy to learn to code so it makes sense to use some of their tutorials to widen my knowledge of web design.
Another impact of a website’s design is its impact on search engines. SEO expert Neil Patel states the following:
Good design solves problems, achieves results, and communicates a message effectively.
A good design is one thing, but if you can marry up SEO and a good user experience, then more people will view your site, giving you more business.
In addition to this I will continue my study of sustainable web design which I speak about in this post.
I am not trying to become a bona fide web designer, however a deeper understanding of the basics of web design are essential for my continuing development.
As the web expands and the world begins, reluctantly, to act on climate change I feel this subject is of ever more increasing importance.
Public sector service design specialists chosen by NHS Bristol, North Somerset & South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to help support parents and carers of children with special or additional needs.
Government service design specialist, Mace & Menter, has won a competitive tender to work with the NHS on a series of projects to adapt and innovate health services in the South West.
The service design specialists will support Bristol, North Somerset & South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group’s ongoing drive to design more effective and inclusive services around the needs of people in the region.
“We needed a partner with deep experience in service design and user research to bring to life human-centred design, and to help us understand how we can apply that in the wider health and care system. We wanted someone who could help us benchmark our skills and upskill the team,” says Ben Carlson-Davies, Insights and Engagement Manager, Bristol, North Somerset & South Gloucestershire CCG.
He adds: “Mace & Menter stood out as the strongest candidate with lots of experience in working with public sector teams. They also really took the time to understand the business needs, and actively challenged us about our own capabilities and where we want to be in the future.”
The Mace & Menter team will initially run research and digital concepting work for the CCG, and North Somerset Council to help them improve the Local Offer website for parents and carers with children with special or additional needs and disabilities.
Working in partnership with the CCG, North Somerset Council and North Somerset Parent Carers Working Together, this research will aim to better understand the current needs of parents and carers when using the Local Offer website. Alongside the research, Mace & Menter will be showing ways the service could be improved through concepts, storyboards and prototypes.
Sam Menter, Co-founder and Managing Director of Mace & Menter, says: “Our research project will ultimately feed into a business case for development and improvements to the existing services across the South West region. The first phase will help increase communication, awareness and information available to parents and carers in North Somerset.
“We have extensive experience running public sector service design projects, upskilling internal teams and embedding a people-centred mindset. Our combined experience of design for services, design and the built environment make us a great fit for the NHS and local government.”
Rob Greenfield is an environmental campaigner, activist and adventurer.
Rob undertakes projects and adventures that highlight environmental issues and provides advice on how to lead a more sustainable life. The campaigns include Trash Me (wearing all the trash of a typical American for a month) and also growing and foraging all of his food for one whole year.
He is a keen blogger so the web design had to put a focus on this. Therefore the Blog page is clearly laid out and cleanly designed, which was one of the main objectives of this web development project.
In terms of web development, this was a custom build from scratch using my own base theme. This allows me to have complete control of the development and future updates.
I undertook all the web design and development aspects of the project in order to best showcase Rob’s work. The site is a custom WordPress build, which makes updating information and adding posts, videos and projects extremely simple.
This site runs purely on renewable energy. The hosting is through Green Geeks, a 300% green hosting platform.
Using WordPress as the Content Management System (CMS), I was able to design and build this website with the end user in mind. I used Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) in order to make the site completely manageable by the client with just a few clicks.
The talented creatives at Bristol designers Phoenix Wharf have once again taken GOLD for Best Hospitality Project at the London Design Awards, taking the top spot for the second year in a row. On both occasions, the winning project has been for a South-West client, shining a welcome light on the region’s buzzing hospitality industry at both a national and international level, with the London Design Awards representing the UK arm of the world’s largest network of design award programmes, which has recognised outstanding projects from over 7,500 brands and 2,500 studios since its 2010 inception by organisers DrivenXDesign. The awards run annually in New York, Shanghai, Sydney and Hong Kong, as well as London.
Phoenix’s Wharf’s 2020 winning project was its design for an ethical, accessible, community-oriented supermarket – The Bristol Loaf – in the city’s Bedminster area, celebrating the best local produce and ingredients by bringing together a café with retail offers including its own bakery, cheeses from Two Belly, new wine offer The Bristol Vine and fruit and veg from Hugo’s Greengrocer.
In 2019, the designers took GOLD for The Yeo Valley Café, taking the Somerset-based business – also the UK’s leading organic dairy brand – to London for the first time in the form of a two-storey café, shop and workspace on Queensway in the west of the city.
‘What these awards highlight is the great entrepreneurialism of the South-West in the hospitality field’, Chris Gwyther, Founder of Phoenix Wharf, commented. ‘We love working with operators who have both fresh ideas and a real vision. Neither project had the highest budget in the world, so it just goes to show that you don’t have to be in the luxury market to make an impact and a difference. You just have to know your target audience.’
‘When it comes to design’, commented Phoenix Wharf Associate Creative Director Emma Carter, who led both projects to fruition, ‘Bristol can now compete with any city in the country. What’s also notable about these projects is what a great advocate the South-West is for boundary-pushing sustainable design, with both projects featuring re-purposed materials wherever possible, and offering healthy, organic and sustainable food and drink with true community appeal.’
About Phoenix Wharf:
Phoenix Wharf is an interior design and branding agency specialising in hospitality and retail. Founded in Bristol in 2015 and independently owned, the consultancy brings ‘substance with soul’ to its clients, from start-ups to established heritage brands, local, national or international, including Space NK, The National Trust, Yeo Valley, Ensemble, Craghoppers, The Gro Company, Gill Marine, Private Room and Gymshark. Along with sister creative companies Ignition (exhibitions, events and experiences) and Caroline (strategic communications), Phoenix Wharf forms part of Istoria Group.
Visit:
www.phoenix-wharf.com
www.istoriagroup.com
iO Academy is on a mission to help to address the gender imbalance in the tech industry, and give people the training they need for a career they’ll love.
Based in the South West, iO Academy is tackling this head on with a rebrand that speaks to their core values of inclusivity and accessibility. Working with Bristol-based creative agency, Fiasco Design, they’ve created a brand that reflects their ambitions of creating a more diverse and inclusive industry, bringing about meaningful change.
It’s no great secret that there is a representation gap for women in tech. More inclusive career pathways in the technology industry have been the focus of various initiatives, such as Tech Talent Charter, Code First Girls, and Tech She Can, along with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport’s Digital Skills Innovation Fund and the Academy’s own Diversitech Fund.
Over a quarter of women students say that they are put off a career in technology as it’s too dominated by men. (PWC)
The UK economy would benefit from an extra £2.6 billion each year if the number of women working in tech is increased.
83% of millennial British women stated that they actively seek out employers with a strong record on diversity, equality and inclusion. (PWC)
Women account for 50% of the UK working age population but only 16% of IT professionals are women. (BCS)
iO Academy is an award-winning coding bootcamp based in the South West. In 2015 it was set up by healthtech company Mayden – not initially as a business, but as a way to solve a problem. Like so many tech companies around the UK, they needed more developers to sustain their own growth. So a team of Mayden developers designed a programme that would train people with no coding experience to be industry-ready developers in just 16 weeks. Their direct tech experience led them to build a course with a new approach; one that gave students the up to date and practical skills that were needed most. A course that anyone, regardless of their gender, ethnicity or background, could come out of as the sort of developer that tech companies want to hire.
After five years in business, it was time to look at themselves and uncover the ingredients which would make them an innovative, purpose-driven brand.
The Academy reached out to Fiasco Design at the start of 2020 with a view to repositioning the company, reflecting their own growth from an idea to solve a talent shortage, to a company with an international reputation. The aim was for a fresh, future-proof identity that would appeal to a diverse range of prospective students and break down perceptions about the tech industry.
With graduates working in tech companies from Bath to Berlin, a 50:50 ratio of men and women trainers, and a strong work ethic towards diversifying the industry and creating an environment that facilitates opportunities for all, Fiasco Design and Mayden Academy embarked on a full strategic review of the current branding; assessing their DNA and defining their core values and company proposition.
Through a number of workshops conducted by Fiasco and Mayden, a new brand name was formed; iO Academy. On the one hand it’s a clear nod to coding language – IO is shorthand for input/output in computer programming. On the other it’s also the name of one of Jupiter’s moons, which seemed a good metaphor for the brand’s innovative, future-focussed outlook.
Margaret Davidson, Business Development and Marketing Manager at iO says, “Fiasco saw right to the heart of who we are as a brand and came up with a visual identity to represent us which we would never have thought of ourselves. In particular, what we wanted was to become more attractive and accessible to a wider range of people, with a core focus on diversity and inclusivity. Working as part of a new niche sector within a wider industry that often seems intimidating, this was a challenge. Fiasco came up with an approach where we now feel confident that an underpinning of inspiring inclusivity will be clear in everything we do, and help us to be part of bringing meaningful change.”
With the name and proposition came a new visual expression for the brand. The visual language is designed to reflect exploration, harnessing imagination and working towards a better future. The graphic shapes give a sense of wayfinding, collecting badges and new skills following a creative pathway. Verbally the tone is positive, ambitious and empowering, and speaks to the curious and willing.
Working with Belgium-based illustrator Soren Selleslagh, the team created a suite of illustrations to depict aspects of the student journey across the course and into their new careers. Soren’s human-centred approach evokes joy and empowerment through positive representation of all types of people. With a devoted outlook to making meaningful illustrations, this partnership gave the brand identity the visual storytelling elements that demonstrate openness and inclusivity.
Ben Steers, Creative Director at Fiasco Design says about the project: “It’s been fantastic to work with the team at iO and help them towards realising their vision of leveling the playing field within the tech industry by creating a fairer, more diverse community of developers”
SAA is the world’s biggest art community, with over 38,000 active members. As well as providing quality art products, SAA offers inspiration, information and advice to its members. You can find out more about the SAA here https://www.saa.co.uk/
SAA has appointed Element78 as their digital partner to re-platform their current ecommerce website to a brand-new Umbraco and Ucommerce solution.
Mel Sallis, Group Marketing Director at SAA, said:
“We were impressed with Element78’s experience in building complex ecommerce & web solutions, as well as their comprehensive discovery methodology. They made us feel confident in their approach, and we look forward to working with them.”
Iain Rhodes, Managing Director at Element78, said:
“This is an exciting project for ourselves and SAA. We are looking forward to getting to know their world through a full discovery and redesign phase over the next month, which will then lead into a full development phase.”
You need to load content from reCAPTCHA to submit the form. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.
More Information