Crush Creative’s India Winstone on creating a Paddington Bear asset pack for the Paddington Shop

India, congratulations on your new promotion. What’s your job title now?
Thank you so much Deej! I’ve recently been appointed Managing Director at Crush. It’s a role I’ve been working towards for a while now, and I couldn’t be happier to have the opportunity to continue to drive our agency forward alongside our incredibly talented team.

Well, congratulations again. Well deserved by all accounts. Now, I know you’re not allowed to share a good number of the projects Crush Creative works on… You recently did something for Paddington, though?
Yes! We were lucky enough to work very closely with The Copyrights Group – a STUDIOCANAL company – to create a full graphic asset pack to be used exclusively across products in the official Paddington Shop at Paddington Station in London. We developed the Lost and Found Paddington logo lock-up, as well as a set of graphic comps, patterns and badges to be used across gifts, apparel, coffee cups and, of course, jars of marmalade.

Real marmalade?
Real marmalade! Taste tested, and I can confirm: its delicious!

Ha! And how did that project come about?
We’d met the brilliant team at BLE a few years ago. Then, last year, Hattie Darlington and I made a visit to their London office to show off our latest portfolio of work. I believe the work that really stood out to them was our illustration, and the various styles our team can work within – which was really relevant to Paddington. We were then incredibly lucky to be sent this brief by the team, and we worked very closely and collaboratively based on their vision.

Terrific! And terms of executing it, India, what was your process?
We always start every project with a creative kick off meeting, to run through the brief, the target audience, the purpose and the vision. The client had a clear idea of the look and feel they were after, which gives us the opportunity to jump straight into exploring some initial test graphics which we review early on with the client.

Once these are approved, we create the full graphic kit. Our brilliant Head of Illustration, Theo Bain, was then able to create lots of new illustrations inspired by Paddington Station – where the products would be on shelf – to go alongside the character artwork from Copyrights.

When working with such a beloved brand, what special challenges do you face?
The challenge of working with a property such as Paddington is always to make sure to stay true to the essence of the brand. It’s important to respect any assets we’re provided with – such as the character art – and make sure to reflect the personality of Paddington.

And how do you do that, India?
When working with such an iconic property, we always work very closely and collaboratively with our client, as they’re the experts on the brand. We had many check-ins throughout this project to make sure we were going in the right direction and delivering the vision they had.

Generally speaking, India, how do you stay creative?
From the people around me! I’m inspired every day by our talented team of designers and illustrators; their skills are all so different… And every day I see work which just blows my mind! It’s a privilege to work with such creative people, and it really keeps work exciting.

Fantastic answer! Thank you. I don’t think I’ve asked you before: how did you come to be doing what you do?
My dad actually ran a design agency in London for 26 years! I often used to go to his office and ‘help’ when I was little. I always loved the atmosphere of a design studio, and thought I’d definitely like to work in the creative industry one day. I went on to study Fine Art, so I had a creative background – but was never a graphic designer myself. Although I’m on the client side, having this background means I can have a vision for the creative brief, ask the right questions, and guide the designers in our team.

Fabulous. Sounds like you’ve got the best of both worlds. We need to start wrapping this up, but let me ask you this: what’s the one question I could’ve asked you today but didn’t?
Who are some of the other brands you’re working with, which you can’t share the work for yet?

That would be a very smart question! See, this is why you’ve been promoted! And what’s the answer?
Well, the licensing industry produces some of the most exciting creative briefs for a design studio, being able to explore properties in a completely new and trend-led way… The only downside is we often can’t share this work. Or it’s a long time before we can share it when we’re working on assets for SS26, or on properties not yet released. We’ve recently worked on some fantastic projects, though, for Riot Games, Formula 1, Mattel, Marvel and Disney, and we hope we can show them off in the future!

Well, we hope so too! If you can, please come on, tell us about them. Thanks, India.