Studio Noel’s Michelle Noel and Lana Zoppi on strategy, style guides and successful collaborations

Michelle, Lana, it’s great to catch up. Let’s start at the beginning – what led you to launch Studio Noel? And how has the agency evolved?
Michelle Noel, Strategy Director, Studio Noel: Initially, we were very brand focused – but not necessarily licensing-focused. We have backgrounds in packaging and illustration, so that was always there, along with the focus on brands and strategy. And then we fell into licensing quite naturally.

Lana Zoppi, Design Director, Studio Noel: Yes, putting our work in branding, strategy and then licensed products together felt very natural – and exciting!

What was the first project to take you into licensing?
Michelle: We worked on a project a long time ago now on a series of books – and some of them were licensed. That was our first introduction to licensing. Then off the back of that, we started working with the Natural History Museum about two years ago.

Before we dive into that, for anyone that hasn’t worked with your creative agency, how would you describe the services you focus on?
Michelle: We do a lot of work for brands and style guides and trend guides – we particularly love doing those. As part of that, we create suites of assets and have specialists in illustration.

Lana: Having skills in branding and illustration, we know how to create assets that can be used in lots of different ways – which is great, because guides need to be adaptable today. Whether that’s adaptable to different seasons or trends… You don’t want to limit their potential.

Michelle: An important part to that is asking clients about their overall objectives and what they want the creative to achieve commercially. That might be to target a specific licensee or retailer… Either way, that commercial goal shapes the creative; it’s a springboard for creativity to come to life.

You mentioned working with the Natural History Museum brand. Do you have a focus in terms of the sorts of IP you create for?
Lana: It’s fairly broad. There are areas we have more experience with, but our strategic approach can be applied to a lot of different areas.

Michelle: Absolutely. We’ve worked with some great brands in the cultural and heritage sector, but there’s a lot to learn and take from other areas that can inform work across a wide range of different brands.

Does it matter for you to be a fan of the brands you’re creating for?
Lana: It’s a delicate balance. If you love a brand, it could mean you’re actually too close it, so you may not want to embrace opportunities to change and evolve it into something new… But at the same time, if you come in completely blind, you’ll miss those nuances that really resonate with the fans. We always make sure that we know all of the lore around a brand if it is new to us.

“You want to ensure you pick up on all the nuances of a brief.”

Michelle: It’s so important to live and breathe the brands we work with. It’s a key part of the process, especially at the start of the project.

Let’s dive into some recent work. Talk me through what you did for the Natural History Museum.
Lana: We did a trend guide called Memory Lane for the Natural History Museum last year. It was a pairing of the Natural History Museum with a lovely, chic, sort of nonchalant illustration style. It was nerdy, quirky and creative – which aligned well with the fanbase.

Speaking of trend guides, how to do approach bringing brands and trends together?
Lana: Once you’ve identified the trend and how it’s manifesting, it’s good to step back and look at why it’s happening. Why are people drawn to it? And how can the brand tap into that, instead of just the surface level trend. There’s always things happening on a deeper level that are interesting and offer great opportunities for brands.

Terrific answer. And what makes for successful collaborations between creative agencies and brand owners?
Michelle: It’s important for us to listen to the brand owner. They know their brand incredibly well, they know their licensing program well and they know what works and what doesn’t. We need to find out and understand challenges they’ve had in the past – as well as successes – so that we can learn from those… It’s important for the collaboration to be open and transparent…

Lana: You want to establish a relationship where you can be comfortable being a bit ‘out there’ with creative sometimes because we can also bring things back to a more comfortable place.

Michelle: That speaks to how iterative the process is. We’re not a studio that just gets a brief and goes away. We want a collaborative relationship where we can really understand your objectives and how we can help you achieve them.

And what makes a good brief?
Michelle: I’d say jumping on a call first! You want to ensure you pick up on all the nuances of a brief. Sometimes you’re trying to dig into what the actual problem is – and it’s not always what’s written in the brief to us. It feeds into this being a true collaboration – openly discussing briefs and working out with clients what they want… Sometimes before it’s outlined in a proposal.

Last question! What fuels creativity for you guys?
Lana: For me, going out and seeing stuff… Art, design… Reading all the time too. I read a lot about other creative minds, people and their lives and what inspired them. Sometimes it’s not directly relevant to what we do – it might be about an engineer or a woodworker – but there’ll be ideas in there that inspire all sorts of other ideas. The more you absorb, the more connections you can make – and interesting connections rather than the same sort of thing.