Purple Creative: Creating Fascinating Brand Worlds for Three Decades and Counting

Above: the founding partners in 2013

​Purple Creative has been in business since 1993. After three decades of non-stop work, the agency’s founding partners – Andy Harding, Gary Westlake and Steve Bewick – are slowing down, just for a minute, to reflect on the journey with LBB. The three were friends before they were business partners and, 33 years later, they’re all still friends with a mature business they’ve built from the ground up.

“We had no secrets,” says Steve of the foundation on which Purple Creative was built. “I think being 100% honest and being able to say what’s on your mind without dressing it up means you don’t bottle up problems and issues.” Friendship provided needed trust and camaraderie too, so much so that Steve confesses they “never signed a business agreement (much to the concern of our accountant)!” adding, “we trust each other implicitly and have got each other's backs, no matter what.”

“Our life-long friendship was forged at Preston Polytechnic (now the University of Lancashire), where we learnt our design craft,” Gary explains. “I think it’s this unique beginning that’s inspired such a great working relationship, vision and culture – Purple has always felt welcoming, with a family feel, fuelled by a desire to do great work.”

The world in which Purple Creative was born is much different to the landscape of today. “It’s scary to think how much has changed over the last 33 years or so! Today, we don’t have to catch the bus from Soho to Smithfield to look at artwork on a colour screen anymore (our first computer was black and white)!” adds Andy. What’s remained the same all this time “is the desire and excitement of solving a business problem through creativity – it’s still the thing that gets me up in the mornings. Creativity is why we started the agency and is still at the heart of our business.”

Above: the founding partners in 1993

Proudly Independent

It’s worth noting that Purple has thrived over the years while staying proudly independent. Still… were they tempted to sell at any point? “To sell would destroy what we most love about Purple,” says Steve. “It turns out we’re all control-freaks, so keeping hold of how we do things is key to us. It means it’s up to us how we approach each project or opportunity – or even turn them down because they’re not right for us!”

Andy echoes his sentiment: “We like doing things our way too much! The trade-offs are that some projects naturally go to a global network when a certain kind of work is required.” He doesn’t see it as a weak point, more like the nature of things, saying “no creative agency is right for every project. There are some jobs that Purple is just made for and clients we work perfectly with.”

Independence for Gary is about the pride the team has in the company they’ve built. Selling “would destroy what we’ve built and how we enjoy working. Being independent and in control has been important to us. Making sure Purple thrives into the future has always been our wish – even when we’re no longer central to the business, we like the idea of having an excuse to meet and be connected to something bigger.”

Purple Creative’s genesis has a charmingly scrappy lore; it was made possible thanks to a Prince’s (now King’s) Trust loan, fuelled by a fresh creative energy and a “passion to change things, to do things better, to come up with ideas that hadn't been done before,” explains Steve. “As we worked on more projects, this turned into a bit of a company ethos, always putting creativity first.”

He recalls the moment it all began in earnest. “Andy and I picked up an oversized cheque for £3,200 and shook Prince Charles’ hand! Conrad Bird was our Prince’s Youth Trust mentor. He taught us a lot. But we also picked up brilliant habits from Sean Kinmont, Tom Wass, Jane Ascher, Andy Vella, Chris Warmsley, Karl Heasman, Julian Bajzert, Andy Annett, and Olly Raeburn, to name a few. There are loads of people along the way who increased our skills and sharpened our abilities, all of them contributing to what Purple has become today.”

The design course at Preston Poly (now UCLAN) instilled in the trio how to combine great ideas with great design to find the right, most suitable solution, “a principle we’ve followed ever since,” says Andy. “It means that even from the start, we’ve realised that every aspect of a brand's output is an opportunity to make a creative difference – with each interaction compounding a brand’s reputation. That’s the basis of our ‘brand world’ thinking, a mindset that’s always been there but is more central to our approach these days.”

Gary notes how starting a business straight out of college was naïve, sure, but it also meant they “didn’t know the boundaries or rules. So, we just continuously pushed! It’s a principle that’s still embedded in our Purple DNA today – we’re always looking to be disruptive and push the creative as far as possible.”

An Articulated Direction

Alongside reflection, the team is also taking the time to articulate what it is they’ve been doing so well for so long: creating fascinating brand worlds. They can all agree on that even though they “couldn’t all agree on how to articulate it but I’m very glad we did, as I can now easily tell taxi drivers what I actually do for a living!” Steve says with a laugh. Why is this important now? “It means we know what we are, what we can offer clients and why it will help them and their brands. We also use it to judge if a project is right for us. What part of their brand world needs improving? Is it fascinating?” In short, for the team, “it’s become our guiding philosophy,” he says.

“We’ve talked about the value of connected, consistent 360˚ brand worlds for ages, with the client and all the contributing agencies pushing in the same direction, following the same vision and using the same creative assets. If you look back at some of our past jobs, like creating the World Rally Championship (WRC) identity over 20 years ago, it follows the same brand world thinking,” adds Andy. “These days we’re just shouting it out louder.”

With three seasoned creative leaders at the helm, the team doesn’t so much strive for absolute harmony – instead they embrace healthy friction. “Over the years, we’ve naturally found our specialisms and passions, so tend to work in different project teams. Saying that, we are all still very opinionated, which I still see as a key positive part of our role within the business,” offers Steve.

Gary also highlights that “the other long-term Purple people, like Gwyn Edwards, Jamie Fleming, Becca Drake, Dave Walker, Phil Joyce, Ali Coggan, Erin Fiore – and all the other brilliant members of the team – all make us Purple. It’s never been about just the three founders – it’s the collective that makes us different, stronger and more fascinating.”

Many lessons have been learned over Purple Creative’s existence. Today, Steve is sure that “good creative and good design can’t be done by anyone.” He sees it as a specific skill that “comes from passion, dedication and an intuitive drive to do better. The ability to think about something in a new way – which I don’t think can be taught. So while tech enables more people to produce ‘content’, let’s all be very honest with ourselves and agree that only some of it is good.”

Andy adds: “Yes, the tools and the media have changed but the need for good creative and design hasn’t. It’s still all about the right idea to solve a particular challenge, delivered in a way that is uniquely perfect for that brand. It’s still about a client who is either visionary themselves, or brave and supportive of ideas from the creatives they chose to work with.”

Gary sees the fundamental principle of “of a connected world that is consistent and joined up” remaining unchanged. “Some agencies understand that – and build on brand worlds with brilliant new campaigns and branding evolutions. Where it goes wrong is when someone is trying to make a ding that will have a negative effect on the rest of the brand world; they’re in danger of eroding brand value, not elevating it.”

The process of reflection has shown Steve, Andy, and Gary that they don’t need to make any major changes while looking ahead. After all, it’s the path they’ve been travelling all this time that’s got them to where they are: a team confident in its skills and the value it brings to clients, now articulated clearer than ever with ‘fascinating brand worlds’ serving like a compass, internally and externally. “We didn’t coin the phrase brand world, but we’ve always been experts in building them, ensuring they’re fascinating to consumers, achieving business objectives and driving success for our clients and their brands,” says Steve.

Andy is particularly proud of the “long-term collaborations with some brilliant clients” Purple has under its belt, past and ongoing. “Working so closely, you learn so much about those companies and categories, and the real issues that need solving. To build a brand world well, it’s vital you have a deep knowledge of all the moving parts, and know how they all interconnect, which parts need to evolve and why.”

And Gary can confidently say that the agency is “exceptional at uncovering that oh-so-elusive strategic advantage for a brand. It could be a historic fact or an icon on an old bottle or a distinctive new colour, or just something a product does differently that we articulate in a new way. We dig deep to find it, but it’s always worth it when it inspires the foundations of a truly meaningful brand world and future brilliant design.”

With confidence and clarity, Purple Creative is looking towards the future. It’s impossible to predict what the next chapter might bring, but Gary, Andy, Steve and the team have the framework in place to face it without too much stress.