- Culture
The one with the mulitcoloured swap shop
While firmly rooted in the wilds of Dalston for the past 15 years, we’ve been lucky enough to work on brands from all over the world – a veritable feast of multiculturalism – from all angles.
Early on, our work took us to Germany, where we built strong client relationships on natural health brands aimed at Latin American and Russian markets.Switzerland became a regular stop too, for local confectionery and skincare brands aimed at the US, managed with Italian, Korean and Ecuadorian clients.When an opportunity arose to partner with a small studio of British expats based in Vietnam, we jumped at the chance and together we delivered campaigns for European brands launching in Southeast Asia.We swapped Asia for the Caribbean when our Head of Strategy relocated there – but this proved a step too far!Later, when our client director based himself in Chile, we got excited about talking to clients across Latin America.
From our multicultural melting pot in East London, we’ve continued to support brands from Eastern Europe and adapt our skills for US-led global healthcare clients.
When it comes to people, our London based clients come from all corners of the globe too. And – we’ve been lucky to have Indian, Vietnamese, Polish, and other perspectives on our own team.
But it got me thinking…
When you’re designing a German brand with a British team, for a Latin audience, and the clients are Egyptian and Italian… is it a mismatch or a match made in heaven?
Do aesthetic sensibilities clash or complement each other?
Are cultural influences enriching or confusing?
And how do we learn each other’s different ways of communicating?
We once had a super Peruvian designer.
His English was excellent (my Spanish, not so much), but we still struggled to align on creative direction.
An anthropologist friend later explained that Latin languages tend to be far more expressive, using many more words than we Brits typically bother with.
The disconnect wasn’t about our language but our respective inabilities to communicate in the same way.
It’s something we rarely talk about in briefings or creative reviews: that is how ours and our client’s cultural backgrounds might shape how we interpret design, colour, typography, even whitespace.
Yet somehow, make it work.
