International Women’s Day: inspiring change

This Saturday is International Women’s Day and to mark it we thought we’d highlight some of the great work of women designers and entrepreneurs we’ve had the privilege of working with recently.

Morag Myerscough

Studio Myerscough

It was such a thrill to have graphic designer Morag Myerscough speak at the Design Council last month to kick-off our take 5 talks series. We’re huge fans of her work, and judging by the number of people who packed into our Angel office to hear her talk we're not alone.

To single out individual highlights from her work is hard, but The Movement Café was a fantastic, vibrant addition to London during the 2012 Olympic Games. The project brought together three of Morag’s passions: colour, type and, perhaps surprisingly, scaffolding, to create a one of a kind café and performance space.

You can now listen again to Morag's take 5 talk, in which she shares the five themes that shape her work:

1. Escaping  2. Exploring  3. Belonging  4. Colour  5. Making

Judith Strachey

White Logistics

One of our favourite case studies when talking about what investing design can do for businesses is White Logistics. Chairman Judith Strachey wanted to see her family-owned haulage business grow, and whilst confessing to being sceptical about whether design could do anything more than make her business look good, she approached the Design Council with an open mind.

Working with the Design Council, Judith presided over a stunning rebrand which has helped the firm generate over £500,000 in new business. Having drawn up a brief with one of our Design Associates, Judith appointed design agency The Allotment to devise a new way of presenting their brand. Tying together identity, livery, animation, uniforms, website and print – the work has proved a huge asset to the firm and won numerous awards for design effectiveness.

The attention to detail from both from Judith’s team and The Allotment was exceptional, with little touches like a brain teaser on the back of every White’s truck playfully re-enforcing their new identity as logistics problem-solvers.

Knee High Design Challenge participants

Design Council's Knee High Design Challenge

In September 2013 we put out a open call for ideas for innovative projects to improve the lives of under fives in South London and were completely bowled over by the response. We were inundated with a record 190 applications with proposals for everything from pop-up parks to apps for new mums.

We’re now funding and supporting 11 teams as they prototype and test their new services, we’ve been inspired by the ability of the many parents on the teams to juggle jobs, childcare and the development of their fledgling social businesses.

If you're in #Peckham tomorrow morning look for us at #peckhamfarmersmarket for some Pop Up Performances as part of #kneehighproject!

— GoodEnoughMumsClub (@GoodEnoughMums) March 1, 2014

You can follow their progress on our Knee High Design Challenge page and on the hashtag #kneehighproject.