With its revolutionary modular system, AERALIS is on the cusp of transforming the design, development and manufacture of combat aircraft; revolutionising fast jet pilot training; and completely rethinking how military air force fleets are operated. As Si is a confessed aerospace nerd, to say he’s excited to be working with AERALIS is a huge understatement. We’re proud to have rebranded AERALIS, and supported them with a huge array of strategic creative services, including 3D animated videos, concept visualisations, website and exhibition stands.

Portman Asset Finance is one of the UK’s leading independent asset finance providers, specialising in bespoke finance solutions for British SMEs through an innovative blend of their own financing capability and a network of lenders. After winning a five-way proposal process, we strategised, designed, developed – and wrote a good amount of SEO-focused copy for – their new website. Development included new enquiry forms and finance calculator modules – essential components for Portman’s data capture and new business generation. Site performance has exceeded expectations from day one of launch.

Another long-standing and immensely rewarding relationship, supporting a titan of the UK’s defence industry. Over the years we’ve supported internal comms campaigns and global customer engagement, across air, land and maritime operations.

Never was human-centred design more effectively applied than for the NHS. Our work began with support to the Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust, but word got around, and some eight years later, we’re proud to say we’ve supported more than half a dozen NHS Trusts, mainly throughout the south and south west of the UK. Our work has supported important engagement campaigns for staff, patients, visitors and governors alike, as well as branding and the launch of new strategies.

FSP is a fast-growing specialist in the field of digital transformation. One of the secrets of their success is a wonderfully warm and supportive culture, delivered as all best cultures are, from the very top down. After winning a multi-agency bid process, we guided FSP through some extremely insightful brand discovery work, which enabled us all to better understand how that awesome culture makes them such a potent and effective force in the tech sector. All we had to do then was bring that together in glorious websiteage.

We help people uncover what makes them unique, and turn that into a potent value proposition; build and fortify a full-depth brand around that understanding; and help them leverage that self-awareness to engage their target audiences, whether they are their own people or external stakeholders and prospective customers.

We use proven proprietary workshops, messaging frameworks and tools to dive deep into a brand and diagnose its strengths and vulnerabilities; to plan remedial programmes; and create new toolsets to improve engagement.

‘Design’ is still too often misunderstood as a wholly aesthetic discipline and an expense rather than a cost of business. Investment (of attention as much as money) is sporadic, resulting in ‘porpoising’ between short-term gains in brand value (without the strategic depth and continuity to maintain it) and the inevitable fade away as investment is withdrawn. At some point in the future, further reactive corrective investment is required and the cycle repeats.

Our solution is ‘Design Daily’ – an attitude that puts strategic creativity as a discipline alongside every other key business function – in the mix with finance, business development, HR and sales. This ensures the continuity required to build on previous activities, eradicate porpoising and deliver sustained brand value growth instead.

We help organisations and teams who struggle to communicate an authentic and differentiated proposition achieve meaningful engagement with their target audiences. Our solutions are driven through game changing brand insight, pragmatic objectivity and a strategic regard for human nature.

The Design Thinking methodology isn’t just reserved for the big stuff. Our work is always driven by our clients’ strategic goals and the people whose behaviours we need to influence. We repeat it at every tier of a campaign or programme, no matter how small the output is. This ensures we are always delivering to the strategy, and not ‘designing for design’s sake’.

We’ve created our own proprietary framework for articulating brand structure and assessing its health within an organisation. It’s most easily described like a cake: an EllisJames brand cake has three layers – Definition, Belief, and – the literal icing on the cake – influence.

A sponge with no icing is no cake at all, while a layer of frosting with no sponge is just a brief sugar rush that leaves you hungry and regretful.

We’re really good at baking deeply satisfying brand cakes; all three layers harmoniously balanced in a moreish treat that keeps people coming back for more. Goes great with coffee.

We want to make the world of work a better place, and we choose to do that through the medium of design. The manner in which we go about delivering the benefits of design can be summed up in one word: kindly.

We strive to be the best darn creative partners we can be. More importantly, together we strive to be the best humans we can be: we will always care about you as individuals and you, as a business.

Empathy, care and kindness are the beginnings of great customer service. Yes, we want people to praise our work, but it’s a special feeling when they celebrate how nice we are to work with.