Warriors Studio

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Category

Design Agency of the Year

Company

Warriors Studio

Summary

Design is powerful ⚔️

Warriors is a design studio specialising in brand identity and digital experiences.

We help our clients engage with audiences, shape perception and drive social, cultural and commercial change. We build brands, develop strategies, create campaigns and design everything in between with purpose and care.

Listed in Creative Review's top 50 most influential creative leaders in the UK and Europe, our Glasgow-based team is led by directors James Gilchrist and Beth Wilson.

Selected clients include: Warner Music, British Council, V&A, Urban Outfitters, WeTransfer, Readymag, G . F Smith, Inspire Academy, BARD, University of Edinburgh, McVities, Festival, TEDx and many more.

We work both locally and internationally across the private, public and cultural sectors with
varying budgets from £100 to £100,000, with local independent artists through to global brands.

As well as providing design services, Warriors also organise a variety of initiatives which support multiple facets of the design industry and regularly offer opportunities to the creative community.

This activity includes:

– Founders and organisers of Scottish design and creative festival, ‘International Assembly’ (formerly Graphic Design Festival Scotland)
– Founders and organisers of the renowned ‘International Poster Competition’ and International Poster Exhibition
– Publishers, co-curators and editors of the International Poster Book (2014-now)
– Founders of online exhibition space, Olympia Gallery
– Regular Visiting Lecturers for ECV (Aix en Provence and Paris) and University of Edinburgh
– Only Scottish Representatives at International Centre of Graphic Design

We founded the festival, International Assembly (formerly Graphic Design Festival Scotland) in 2014 to promote Scotland as a hub for design, strengthen the creative community and offer opportunities to designers locally and internationally.

Since launching, we've welcomed 250,000+ participants, attendees and visitors to our events,
with the most programmes selling out. The festival has also grown to international
acclaim, with 40%+ of core programme participants travelling from around the world to Scotland, from places including USA, Japan, Beirut, Israel, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Spain.

From the outset, our festival has been community-focused, industry-connected, valuable,
accessible and forward-thinking. These values have remained strong since founding.
INTL reaches millions each year and has brought thousands of visitors to Scotland.

Our International Poster Competition is now recognised as one of the most renowned design competitions in the world and we hold one of the largest collections of contemporary posters in existence. All of this founded and organised in Scotland.

Through our recognition with Warriors, International Assembly and International Poster Competition we proudly represent Scotland at bi-annual meetings at the International Centre of Graphic Design.

The work we do through Warriors is often recognised and reviewed by the creative media: It’s Nice That, The Brand Identity, Creative Review, AIGA, The Design Kids, Lecture in Progress, Etapes, Grafik Magazine, Icon, Typeworld and many more.

Warriors win awards: European Design Awards, Scottish Design Award, Deutsche Bank Award, Graphic Awards (New York).

Warriors regularly run workshops with people of all ages and abilities to inspire and open minds to new ways of working: Biennale Internationale de Design Graphique, Texas University, Intuit Lab Paris, ECV Aix-en-Provence and many more.

Warriors have been invited to offer our opinion in industry events, competitions, awards and education: Young Blood, International Poster Competition, ECV Masters, Young and Powerful and The Design Kids Awards.

What sets your practice/agency apart from others?

There are 2 key factors which set Warriors apart from every other practice and agency in Scotland. 1. The work we produce is innovative, ambitious, unique. At Warriors, we take pride in collaborating with our clients to explore new ideas, experiment with cutting-edge technology, and pursue bold and ambitious outcomes. Our focus is on delivering unique and memorable experiences that push boundaries and leave a lasting impression on the audience. For our architect client BARD, we meticulously designed a bespoke typeface that is uniquely tailored to their brand, accompanied by a captivating and memorable colour palette. This distinctive identity stands out from the conventional use of monochrome and earthy tones typically found in the architectural world, setting BARD apart. For Mungo’s Hi Fi, we created a vibrant identity system, website and campaign infused with energy, warmth and motion. This innovative approach not only attracted a new audience to Mungo’s but also stayed authentic to their dedicated fanbase. In an world where soundsystem adjacent music often draws inspiration from Jamaican colour palettes and culturally appropriated imagery, the identity we created for Mungo’s Hi Fi is unique to them, authentic, considered and relevant. For Graphic Design Festival Scotland, we pioneered the creation of an online gallery space known as Olympia Gallery, transcending geographical constraints and physical limitations to showcase exceptional graphic design work. Warriors spearheaded this initiative pre-COVID, establishing one of the earliest online galleries in existence. For East Ayrshire Advocacy Services, we designed and built a website and referral system which facilitated easier access to the service, empowering marginalised individuals within the community and allowed a large number of new clients to access its resources and support. For INTL, we branded and launched a new space for creative coding and an interactive design tool called Playground. This tool empowers people worldwide to express themselves through drawing with images and type, choreographing motions, uploading images, and exporting custom drawing animations. As a free and accessible resource, Playground stands as a unique space, unmatched by any other tool in existence. This is only a few examples, however you can explore more of our work on our website and socials. 2. Our impact on the creative community While it's understandable that most agencies and design studios operate with a commercial drive to service paying clients, our focus extends far beyond this. Through our initiatives (International Assembly, International Poster Competition, Olympia Gallery, International Poster Book and more), Warriors unites creative people, offers opportunities for improving skills, exploring new trends and connecting with new innovations. INTL also connects talent with jobs, equips businesses with staff, supports the growth and development of local businesses, builds local community, showcases best practice, encourages collaboration, offers a platform for discussion and creates an international profile for Scotland. Our aim is to add creative, cultural and social value to the world, not ONLY commercial and this is what sets us apart from other practices/agencies in Scotland. We’ve organised 230+ events and projects for the creative community through 7x physical festivals + 8x festivals online and delivered 150+ design and creative projects through Warriors Studio over the last ten years.

How do you go 'the extra mile' for clients and employees?

The core Warriors team consists of Beth (Director/Project Manager), James (Creative Director), Mook (Project Manager/Designer), Tiernan Crilley (Motion Designer) and a team of talented freelancers, collaborators, partners, suppliers, volunteers and contractors. We're a small but ambitious team who love creativity and design. We are a team of friends with a united aim and passion for bold and ambitious outcomes. Each full-time Warrior works a flexible working day to encourage a good work-life balance. Warriors has a culture of friendship, respect and care. We aim to treat each other equally and support each other personally and professionally. Developing our skills and growing as people is important to us, therefore we all regularly attend conferences, workshops and training for personal and professional development. We also promote health and wellness by encouraging Warriors to attend fitness, therapy and wellness appointments during the week. As we are a small but ambitious team we attract a wild variety of clients from different cultures, disciplines and places. Being a smaller team allows us to build good relationships with our clients, many becoming long-term collaborators, friends and supporters. This also allows us to bring in the best people globally (connected through our running of INTL) for specific projects. We work all of our projects to the best of our abilities and aim for bold and ambitious outcomes. Every project is an opportunity to explore something new and we’re proud of all our clients and collaborations. Over the past decade, at Warriors, we've refined our service to a point of confidence, frequently surpassing our clients' expectations.

What innovations have you introduced in the past year?

From a design perspective, our two most innovative projects in the past year has been ‘The Playground’ and ‘Poster World’. 1. We launched The Playground to experiment on digital tools and creative coding at Warriors Studio and INTL. How can digital tools encourage play? How can code be used for expression? Can code be used in an organic way? Can digital tools encourage us to be more human? The first tool named ‘Klee’ allows you you to draw with images, draw with type, choreograph motions, craft your own brush, upload images, and export custom drawing animations. After generating your work, you can share it to a public gallery. Klee is about enjoying the primal and instinctive notion of drawing, and evolving it. We often view technology and digital tools as a means to perform tasks more quickly, easily or efficiently, but how can digital tools inspire expression, evoke feelings, and encourage us to play? We put the tool into action for International Assembly festival. Using the Klee tool we created animations for the website, the main campaign for the festival, stinger videos for each of the twenty guests and conference presentation visuals. The Playground website design builds on INTL's existing brand identity while introducing a more digital flavour with new patterns inspired by ASCII art and floating info panels which nod to skeuomorphism. The Playground logo design and animation mirror the experience of drawing with Klee. You can explore this on https://warriorsstudio.com/work/playground Klee created in collaboration with Kiel Mutschelknaus. 2. We also launched ‘Poster World’. Poster World is a new approach to digital exhibitions, using an augmented reality app. You can explore this year’s International Poster Exhibition wherever you want, framed by unique and interactive billboards. Poster World lets visitors become curators. The app is a merger between a museum and a playground. Additionally the viewer has the option to load in their own posters to display them in a fantastic frame. We have also included a photo-button, so you can share your creations. Poster World was designed and developed by Nam Huynh and Sebastian König in collaboration with INTL and Warriors Studio. You can find out more about Poster World at https://intl.international/poster-world/ From a personal-led perspective at Warriors, our biggest innovation is working a flexible working pattern allowing our team to work in different timezones and places. This has revolutionised our time and encouraged a better work-life balance.

Links

https://warriorsstudio.com

http://intl.international

https://www.olympiagallery.org

https://intl.international/posters/

https://intl.international/poster-world/

https://intl.international/playground/