Insights
Thinking, in writing.
Notes from inside the studio: strategy, positioning, brand systems, motion, and the everyday craft of making businesses sound like themselves.
Brand StrategyBrand Story Framework: The Structure That Holds Up
A brand story framework taken out of real client documents rather than borrowed from someone else's book. Four layers, the positioning formula we build against, and the three places it fails.
19 August 2026
Brand StrategyHow to Write a Brand Story
The process I use to pull a brand story out of a business that is certain it does not have one. Seven steps, five worked examples, and where it goes wrong.
12 August 2026
Brand StrategyWhy your sales team should be in the brand strategy workshop
Most brand strategy is written in a room your sales team never enters. The people testing your language against real buyers every week have the evidence your positioning needs.
28 July 2026
Brand StrategyPositioning as commercial infrastructure: why "for everyone" costs you margin
Staying open to everyone feels like caution, but it erodes your margin, stalls referrals and forces you to compete on price. Positioning is commercial infrastructure, read off what a business refuses.
6 July 2026
Brand StrategyBrand strategy versus branding: how to tell which one you bought
Most businesses pay for branding while believing they commissioned brand strategy. Here is a simple test that tells the two apart, and why the difference decides what your business says no to.
5 July 2026
Growth & LeadershipEight acquisitions, sevenfold growth: the one thing Tom Wood says matters most
He scaled a business sevenfold and completed eight acquisitions. Ask Tom Wood the one thing he'd never be without and it isn't strategy or tech, it's people.
26 June 2026
Brand StrategyOutgrown your brand? Five questions every growing business should ask
Your business has evolved, but has your brand kept up? Five honest questions to help you tell whether your positioning, website and messaging have fallen behind the business you've become.
22 June 2026
Growth & LeadershipThe Forgotten Part of Sales Training: Why Listening Beats Logic
Sales training often focuses on persuasion; the perfect pitch, the confident close. But there’s a quieter, far more powerful skill that’s rarely taught properly. Listening.
5 June 2026
Growth & LeadershipWhat failure taught me about building a business
The honest version of my business story: building a creative agency with Dave, closing it in December 2023, and the five things it taught me.
4 June 2026
Brand StrategyYour audience doesn't need the whole story, they need the right brand messaging
Most owners can explain everything they do. The trouble is it does not all matter first. How to translate complex business thinking into brand messaging people understand, remember and act on.
28 May 2026
Growth & LeadershipEveryone wants growth. Hardly anyone builds the conditions for it.
Growth is far more sensitive to the conditions people work in than the effort they put in. On why clarity beats activity, and the conditions that make growth repeatable rather than down to luck.
5 February 2026
Brand IdentityThe cost of inconsistent branding
Inconsistent branding is rarely a design problem. It is a clarity problem, and it costs you in three places.
16 November 2025
Brand StrategyRebrand your business with a strong branding strategy
Most businesses reach a point where the brand no longer matches the business they have become. Here is when a rebrand is the right call, what it actually involves, and why strategy has to come first.
1 September 2025
Brand StrategyBeyond the logo: what brand strategy means for scaling
Most businesses start with a logo. The ones that scale start with strategy. Here is what brand strategy actually covers, the five pillars we build on, and why it matters more as you grow.
14 July 2025
Brand StrategyWhy SMEs need brand strategy more, not less
Brand strategy gets bumped down the SME priority list for the same reason it shouldn't. Here's where the absence bites, what changes when you fix it, and how to do the work on a small-business budget.
13 November 2024
Brand StrategyBrand Strategy vs Marketing Strategy: the long game and the short game
Brand strategy shapes who you are over the long term. Marketing strategy converts that brand into pipeline. Here's how the two work together.
15 March 2024
Brand IdentityA practical guide to designing a brand identity that holds up
Brand identity is the visible, audible and emotional surface of your strategy. Built well, it makes you recognisable, gives your team a shared language, and earns trust before the sales call.
15 March 2024
Brand IdentityBrand identity vs brand image: the gap is the work
Brand identity is what you set. Brand image is what people perceive. The gap between them is the actual branding work, and most marketing problems are gap problems in disguise.
3 February 2024
Animation & VideoQuality over cost: the smart investment in animated explainer videos
An animated explainer is a positioning call, not a budget call. The cheap version usually costs more by the end of its (short) life.
15 November 2023
Brand StrategyBrand Workshop Exercises: The 5 That Do the Work
The agenda I use to run a brand strategy workshop, the five exercises that do most of the work, and the four ways they go wrong.
17 October 2023
Brand IdentityYour Logo Cheat Sheet: How To Use Logo File Formats
AI, EPS, PDF, JPG, PNG, SVG: what each logo file format actually does and which one to use where. The cheat sheet for everyone who isn't a designer.
13 October 2023
Brand IdentityFive reasons no one will read your annual report
Annual reports get a bad rap, and not without reason. Long, dense, built for an audience that was already going to read them. Here's how to fix the five things that stop everyone else from engaging.
2 October 2023
Brand StrategyBrand Discovery Workshop: What It Actually Does
A brand discovery workshop is the working session that should happen before any design. Get the leadership team in a room, pressure-test what the brand stands for, and leave with answers.
16 July 2023
Animation & Video5 examples of tech firms killing it with brand-driven animated storytelling
Humans are hard-wired for storytelling. Five tech brands, Slack, Headspace, Pendo, Spline and Eero, that get it absolutely right with animated content that puts the customer at the heart of the story.
2 June 2023
Animation & VideoTen 2D animation styles (with examples) and why they work
Ten 2D animation styles we use most often: kinetic typography, vibrant nostalgia, motion graphics, monochrome, character, explainer, isometric, pixel art, vector and mix-and-match.
23 March 2023
Brand StrategyThe 10 Best Brand Storytelling Examples
Ten brand storytelling examples worth copying, from Airbnb to a Welsh gym, plus the three tests every brand story has to pass.
25 October 2022
Brand Identity5 reasons brand identity guidelines are so important
You've inherited a brand and the only asset is an elderly JPG of the logo. This is the case for brand identity guidelines that nobody talks about: the work is mostly invisible until it isn't there.
22 September 2022
Animation & VideoThe Tom Channon safety campaign: Stay Aware, Stay Safe, Stay Together
In June 2022 we launched Stay Aware, Stay Safe, Stay Together: the animated education pack made with the Channon family to help young people on their first independent trips look out for each other.
13 June 2022
Animation & VideoHow style frames keep your animation project on schedule
Most animation projects that slip do so because the visual direction wasn't pinned down before animation began. Style frames are the stage where that gets fixed, and the deadline gets saved.
5 April 2022
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