www.boxer.uk.com

Design Consultants | Birmingham & London

Could you tell us a little about Boxer?
We are a design consultancy specialising in corporate identity, retail design and packaging. We are based in London and Birmingham.

How is your work team group and what is the function of each one?
We are small (20 people) and we resolutely intend to stay small. Get any bigger than that and it f###s up the culture… you start having to take work just in order to feed the monster. Like everyone else that visits your site we are only interested in doing work that stimulates us. Although, that said, we are commercially minded too and we will occasionaly prostitute ourselves and ‘take the money and run’!

Which are the principal customers of the Boxer?
We work for some pretty big brands – which is good thing and a bad thing. On the positive side the work that you do gets visibility, on the negative side big brands can sometimes mean ‘more to lose, less risk averse’ so we are always on the look out for interesting, smaller challenger brands. Those are the ones where the vision and passionate are there for all to see. Brands like Urban Splash (check out their site… urbansplash.com) who are a property developer with a difference.

You guys won the account of a brand new identity to combat negative perceptions of birmingham in a pitch against two other important design consultants in the middle of this year. We´d like you to describe the development of this project.
Yeah, we beat Wolff Olins head-to-head. Which makes me very proud as they are ‘the daddies’ when it comes to branding… Tate Modern, Orange, powwow, GO etc … Respect to Wally Olins!
Anyway, the big issue for Birmingham is that it isn’t a fashionable city at the moment. In fact the only thing that is popular for outsiders about it is to make fun of it. It is perceived to be industrial, grey, dull and populated by people with funny accents. Therein lay the crux of their issue… whilst the perception was bad the reality was very different. Over the last 10 years they’ve completely regenerated the city. There are bars, fantastic shopping facilities, cultural facilities and business infrastructure. Our job was to create a brand proposition that reflects the real experience of visiting or living or working in Birmingham.
We worked with the City to define their brand into 4 key parameters… vision, values, personality and identiy. The new identity included designing a bespoke typeface that is to be used across everything that the city does from signage to literature, vehicle liveries, uniforms etc.

How is the job market nowadays?
When you say ‘job’ I assume you mean client/projects. If you do, it is very very bouyant. We are flat out on large projects. Too flat out… we want to have a Xmas!!!

Could you tell us anything about the design project that will be developed for mcdonalds in this month? At least a clue…
No, other than it is one of the biggest global design projects this year. It’s being launched at their press conference in Chicago on 16/12 and if we steal their thunder our ‘collective gonads will be roasted over a fuego garande’!

Basicly…. How do you guys deal with competition and rivalry?
In terms of competition we just try to concentrate on what we are doing, building a reputation in key areas like retail, packaging and identity work. That way the clients come to you and you don’t have to worry so much about what the other guys are doing.

Does Boxer also develop intire marketing campaigns?
Yes we do. Whilst we are fundamentally design consultants we are able to take a holistic approach and develop ad campaigns etc We are doing just that for Urban Splash… brand positioning, identity, literature, website, advertising, direct mail, guerilla campaigns and website for their latest regeneration project… Fort Dunlop in Birmingham.

Do you have any new projects coming up soon that you can tell us about?
Yes we have . And no we can’t! We could tell you but we’d have to kill you!!! Watch our site…

What are your plans for the future?
Stay small and stay real