Sarah Swindell, Maggy Harris and Steve Richards on Watermelon Creative and Dynamo’s new collaboration: United Creatives

For anyone new to United Creatives, how would you describe it? And how did it come about?
Sarah Swindell, Founder & MD, Watermelon Creative: It came about via a lovely introduction from Maggy Harris. Maggy has known Steve Richards at Dynamo and myself for a long time – she knows our skill sets, our personalities and how we run our businesses. So Maggy connected us about two years ago and we started having a chat about how we could work together.

Maggy Harris, New Business Development Consultant, Dynamo: I think we’re stronger working collaboratively and it’s always good to explore new ideas. Dynamo had a lot of work on, so I suggested Steve have a chat with Sarah. Watermelon Creative and Dynamo are similar businesses and Sarah and Steve both have a great reputation and industry respect… Importantly, the skill sets of the two independent studios are very complementary. It made a lot of sense.

Steve Richards, MD, Dynamo: Our business has expanded from the moment we started. We’ve always tried to offer a broad spectrum of services. It’s been a relationship-based approach, rather than looking at things from a job-by-job basis. We want Dynamo to be a creative support service for whatever our clients need.

“United Creatives offers clients a one-stop solution that elevates the creative output we can deliver.”

When Sarah and I first started talking, we realised we had quite a few clients in common. We were being asked to pitch for the same jobs… We thought, instead of an ‘either/or’, we could offer something where a client’s requirements could be serviced more efficiently by the Dynamo and Watermelon Creative collaboration – and that’s what United Creatives is.

Sarah: Although there are synergies, we have different expertise and are known for different things. Some clients work with both of us, but in different ways. United Creatives offers clients a one-stop solution that elevates the creative output we can deliver.

Does this reflect what creative studios need to offer today to be competitive?
Sarah: If you genuinely collaborate, you can achieve exciting, innovative and unexpected solutions – and an outcome of greater depth than you’d achieve on your own.

It’s important to stress that Dynamo and Watermelon Creative both still exist as separate studios and separate businesses. So, what sort of projects make sense for United Creatives?
Sarah: United Creatives offers a new vision; we deliver creative materials that drive excitement and are 100% designed with commercial return in mind for the brand owners. It might be a client has a new brand or an evergreen favourite and they want fresh vision and a contemporary creative strategy.

“Good creative is indispensable to commercial success in this industry.”

They may still come to Dynamo or Watermelon Creative for creative skills they’ve always used us for, but they can use United Creatives collectively to holistically launch and build their brands in the right way. It’s not just about crafting beautiful style guides; it’s a more rounded offering.

Steve: It’s particularly relevant for evolving sectors that are newer to licensing, such as Museums and Heritage, Sport and Location-Based Entertainment. Our collective skillsets bring a vast array of creative competencies to a client’s disposal but with one point of contact rather than many.

Maggy: Good creative is indispensable to commercial success in this industry. It’s the life blood of licensing. United Creatives wants to provide a different way of doing things via this one-stop shop – covering everything from asset and IP creation, to live events and experiential services. We want to help bring some energy back to the industry and elevate quality.

“It’s not just about crafting beautiful style guides; it’s a more rounded offering.”

Sarah: It’s not easy for anybody in the industry right now, but by thinking about things differently – and working in a new collaborative way – together we can support our partners to move the market forward.

Steve: To be competitive today, brands need to use every tool in the creative toolkit; and United Creatives has a very large toolkit! There isn’t an area we can’t help licensors or licensees with… And the other important thing to say is the fact we can collaborate gives you an indication of how well our teams mesh and trust each other.

To wrap up, let’s dive into a case study! United Creatives recently crafted a series of brand toolkits for Historic Royal Palaces. Talk us through the project.
Maggy: The Point.1888, together with Historic Royal Palaces, wanted to expand the brand’s reach outside of their own retail. The brief was to inspire licensing partners to think of their brand as a true international franchise, with real opportunity outside of the souvenir and gift shop market.

Our pitch to them was… You’ve got 1,000 years of incredible history, so many options and so much material that it would be impossible to encapsulate the brand in a single guide. Let’s create a series of ‘collectible and interchangeable’ toolkits with ownable assets and masses of product and packaging inspiration. Historic Royal Palaces’ USP is actually their Unique Story Point rather than any one Unique Selling Point. The resulting creative guides have authentic, beautiful storytelling at their heart.

Steve: The heritage sector is an exciting area for us to explore because there’s a tendency for brands in that sector to follow a similar creative route. There’s a huge opportunity to look at the sector from a different perspective and thereby create exciting new branding solutions.

From a brand perspective, Historic Royal Palaces needed a really strong, core brand identity for licensing. What they have is thousands and thousands of stories – and thousands and thousands of visual representations of those stories. These provided the foundation for multi-purpose toolkits threaded together by a strong brand visual identity.

Sarah: What we identified and focused on is creative stories to engage consumers across key product categories, taking our inspiration from what is currently working at retail, trend forecasts – and Historic Royal Palaces’ brief – to provide unique, usable assets for licensees. We created three initial toolkits: Iconography, Elegance in Excess and Palace Stories. Each is aimed at different sections of the market and each focused on different stories.

Steve: A single style guide doesn’t always help brand building in any meaningful way… What United Creatives brought to Historic Royal Palaces is a new voice and design language. It will be continually used and expanded upon to give The Point.1888 and the Historic Royal Palaces brand teams the platform – and consistency of assets – to use globally.

It’s not just a style guide, it’s a practical retail and licensee-friendly brand and asset archive that can be added to for years to come.

It’s a cracking example. Thanks so much guys.