Brand alignment

Companies looking to maximise the potential and impact of their brand should always consider the importance of their working environment as part of the brand experience. We've worked with lots of companies helping them implement their brand values within their working environment.  The interior should be a physical embodiment of the brand both in terms of the visual impact/aesthetics and the use of space.

Here's a visual guide to how to match furniture finishes to your brand palette, matching the proportions of use that you'll see in your printed documents and website.  This continuity reinforces the brand experience and enables your working environment to be a fully integrated part of your brand without the need to plaster your logo everywhere.

Its a scaleable approach, easy to understand and implement.  You can see this approach in action with our refurbishment of the ACCA offices in Glasgow.

Ace Hotel in Shoreditch

With a reception looking more like a record store the Ace Hotel in Shoreditch both unsettles and comforts at the same time.  Design cognoscenti will be familiar with the hybridisation of spaces where aesthetic styles are borrowed and re used but your average punter may find the collision unnerving.  

But this is Shoreditch and with friendly staff welcoming guests any jitters are quickly overcome. The use of materials, with rich colours and textures is immediately comforting and reassuring. With a palette of greys, copper, exposed concrete and timber the design creates a warm and sophisticated impression.  

We're met by Laslo, dressed casually in a t-shirt, jeans and Doc Martens. All black but offset by yellow laces. Receptionists wear white shirts with black ties and ribbed jumpers.  There's a touch of military fatigues about them but this ain't no boot camp.




































Ascending the lift to the rooms, reached along corridors of raw concrete, artwork panels 
and large navigation graphics, the aesthetic continues combined with some witty details 
including a magnetic door panel with a reversible magnetic sign to attract room service's
attention.


There's a industrial feel to the fixtures and fittings but the hard edge is softened by timber, cork panels, individual wall art and a lovely patchwork blue bed spread on a very comfortable bed.  The mini bar includes Polish vodka and Pot Noodle which sums up this place where luxury is mixed with austerity, stripped back and rich, but put together with a sophistication that appeals to customers looking for a unique experience.



I pluck an Eric Clapton vinyl album from the shelf, some rooms have record players, and an Ercol stool sits in the white tiled bathroom.  There's something vaguely nostalgic about how it's all put together, harking back to a simpler utilitarian lifestyle perhaps, but with the mod cons and service you'd expect from a top hotel.

The reception area currently includes an exhibition about the design of the hotel including a materials board which is great for students and professionals of design. A great website and the usual blog, Facebook and Twitter feeds provide a seamless and rounded experience. 

Camper Coffee Co.

We like the style of the Camper Coffee Co. who were serving their slow drip filter coffee from a 4 cup brew bar set up alongside a suburb split screen VW camper at the Exeter Food Festival last weekend.

The camper has immediate nostalgic style in its wonderfully restore livery and is a great visual draw with the rough hewn timber counter providing a natural and down to earth feel.  The waistcoats are a nice touch.  These chaps have style.



















The VW camper is one of a number of classic utilitarian vehicles that food and drink purveyors have taken to providing mobility and style to their products.  We'll be blogging more about some of the others we've found.  This 1964 VW Camper split screen container van has been lovingly restored and provides a wonderful centrepiece for their business.

Colour of the Month

Hague Blue is our favourite this month and its soon to be the colour of choice for exterior detailing of The Salutation Inn, Topsham.



The Dutch left a lot of influences in this estuary town during the rich trading era, which was at its peak in the 17th and 18th Century. Hague Blue looks black from a distance but isn't and with a hint of blue it's subtle and more sophisticated than your default black on white. Ideal for a listed building which wants to show a bit of refinement.

The Salutation is undergoing a much needed renovation and we look forward to the results.

Coffee is cool-Origin Coffee

You can't help but be seduced by this company. Origin Coffee, based in Helston, Cornwall, are passionate about the product and through their training and support they aim to raise the standard of coffee in the UK to world class.

Not only is their branding and packaging really modern and funky but they supply some of the top names in the industry including Jamie Oliver, Thomasina Miers, Rick Stein, Nathan Outlaw as well as a couple of our favorites Joel Wilkinson from Trof and the newly opened Real Food Store in Exeter.

Add to that, their environmental credentials are top notch with their Farmer 30 brand guaranteeing a minimum 30% profit margin for their farmers.

Taste of the West

With the Real Food Store having been open for less than a week our minds are really focused on the great local food available from Devon and the south west. The shop on Paris Street, Exeter, is a great showcase for some fantastic products. With a cafe banging out lovely hot food and a bakery on site its really a food lovers dream.

To savour more of what the south west has to offer we visited the Taste of the West show in Exeter. We were particularly impressed by Bell&Loxton who produce rapeseed oil from South Milton in Devon. The oil comes in a really smart aluminium bottle which is lighter than glass, wont break, is easier to recycle and being solid protects the precious oil from light.


Deli Farm Charcuterie from Delabole in Cornwall are redefining our expectations with award winning salamis and hams that give the more familiar French and Italian products a run for their money. With local meat and the best traditions fused with modern technology their air dried meats have a real depth of flavour and quality.

Design Surgery-Opticians

Design surgery. June/July 2010
Where. Forster Inc Country
What. Opticians

Reviving an existing business is always tricky. You want to attract new customers but don't want to upset your existing clients. We were approached to help Totnes based opticians Keith Wills to re fresh their shop.



Its a good location but lacks visual impact from the street. With their stock having an emphasis on retro and vintage products we saw an opportunity to create an interior that better reflects that image and displays the products more effectively.

We introduced a new colour palette using the Dulux Heritage range, designed some window units that enable more products to be displayed and suggested complimentary accessories to continue the theme.


They are just getting the painters in as we speak so we'll post the results when we get the pics.

Smell the coffee.

We like our coffee strong and with personality. A good barista can rustle up the first bit; hot water forced through 7 grams of finely ground beans. Personality is a little harder.

Big companies spend thousands creating brands to attract our attention but many lack the personal touch. But the work of brand design agency Mystery bucks the trend by creating brands with real personality.

Founder, Dan Einzig, responsible for the design of Giraffe and Exeter’s Butternut Kitchen Café explains their approach. “A good brand communicates a distinctive personality that your market connects with. We define the positioning and try to create brands with character traits that people fall in love with”

Being independent Butternut can afford to be more provocative and cheeky and it has bags of personality. Designed to “put a smile on people’s faces” its quirky details are carried through from the menus to cups and wall murals.

Another Exeter gem is Caffe Espresso near the castle, which reminds us of a classic Italian coffee bar. Not so much designed but evolved with a busy bar plastered with postcards, pictures, pastries and the buzz of regulars chatting away.

Good coffee and personality? Now there’s something to fall in love with.

3d Brand

Get the professionals in.

If you are thinking of launching a new business, product or service think about the branding at an early stage. How your image is perceived by your customers will have a bearing on the success and you need to ensure that the message is coherent with the rest of your offer. When we work with clients we develop the brand identity across the whole of their organisation to include their interiors, website, logo, uniforms, advertising making sure that they all project the same core brand values. Its a collaborative approach where we work closely with brand specialists to define and position the brand so that it can maximise its potential.

For MULTI-STORY-THINKING we worked with our old friends from The Cauldron. They pulled out the stops, took our concept and created a great name and logo, formatted our blog, tweaked the presentation sheets and made sure we ordered the correct orange.

Thanks to Kalvin, Dan, Gresty, Max. They're so good even the pics from the party come back on brand......

3d Brand

Project your brand.



First Signs and Labels have provided us with a giant vinyl for our showroom door. Its a great way to project our brand and creates an immediate feature when you enter the office. On the back is a digitally printed wallpaper. We used the same technique to create feature walls for Shine on the Green with a graphic image developed from photos of the trees on neighbouring Newington Green.



With the choice of image limitless you can go to town and create something unique to your business that will help you stand out from the crowd

Shine on the Green

For their second site the Shine team chose a shell space set back from Newington Green. We planned the layout to provide 5 treatment rooms at the rear with a busy salon at the front. We built on the existing brand identity, transferring the best from the first site and combining with a few new features to create a distinctive, relaxing and friendly atmosphere. Have a look at http://www.forsterinc.co.uk/projects/retail/shine-on-the-green