Written by Billy Paine

News klaxon: Meet Fabric. 

2020 provided a unique set of challenges both in and out of the office, but alongside those challenges it also provided a unique time of reflection: It gave me the opportunity to dig deep, and then dig a bit deeper on what made me tick as a creative, what started my engine as a designer, and most importantly, what got me going as a human. It provided me with the time to reflect on my creative outfit, where it had come from, where it is now, and where it’s headed.

It became quickly apparent in this time of reflection that intentional. in its current shape and form had probably run its course. For a pantheon of reasons but namely; it was too inaccessible, too broad and too ‘one-size fits all’. It was too general, too sweeping, too baggy. Along with this it wasn’t as collaborative as I’d like, it was very ‘me’ and not very ‘we’, it was very insular, closed and narrow. So about 2 months into 2020 I set about rebranding intentional. renaming it and repositioning it, keeping all the good bits but binning off the bits that had become stale and drab over the 3 and a bit years it had been in existence. It was during this process of ‘trimming the fat’, that it became apparent that the ‘full service’ ‘all-singing-all-dancing’ ‘creative agency’ route wasn’t going to fit with whatever came next. 

For me, since pretty much day dot I’ve always been passionate about building brands. Bringing together a unique set of values and truths into one system-driven creative ensemble. Collating and collecting businesses ideals and ideas, and pairing that with beautiful design. It’s always got me going and always will get me going and it’s why whatever came next had to be just that; a branding agency. Less ‘full-service’ and more ‘one service done really bloody well’. Less ‘jack of all trades’ and more ‘master of one’. Less quantity, more quality. Deeper, not broader. 

In terms of approach I wanted to keep things simple, and that meant figuring out what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to do it, in its simplest and most granular form, and it boiled down to three core components. 

Ideas
Ideas that cut straight to the essence of brands, robust ideas that start with solid and tangible truths, ideas that work. 

Design
Design that moved people, design that empowered people, design that was irresistible and beautiful, design that worked.  

Execution
Clear, jargon-free, simple execution. Providing solutions in their simplest and therefore the truest shape. Less smoke and mirrors and more honest communication.

After establishing the ’what’ of ‘what I wanted to do’ and the ‘how’ of ‘how I wanted to do it’ I set about figuring out the ‘why’ of ‘why would people want to partner with me / us / this’. This was arguably one of the more straightforward bits of the process, as, after 3 or so years working with clients on a personal and personable level you figure out what matters and what sticks. And not just what matters to one person or one client but universally what matters to everyone. 

Agility matters
When you demonstrate an agile, supple and flexible way of working with clients you quite quickly get on their good side. Not flexible in the sense of ‘anything goes’ but flexible in the sense of being available, being adaptable and bending without breaking. 

Passion matters
It’s not enough just to know your subject matter any more, it’s not enough to just do it the way it’s always been done for donkeys’ years. You have to get on board, get involved, get stuck in and be passionate about what you’re doing and what you’re talking about. 

Partnership matters
If we were going to be brought in to the fold on large-scale, wide-reaching brand and identity projects then we needed to be forming partnerships not just relationships. We needed to be able to become part of the furniture and stay part of the furniture for the long haul. And as the age-old cliche goes we needed to be able to work with businesses not just for them. 

Simplicity matters
Simplicity in the creative sector is a funny one because sometimes solutions, at least on the face of them, can be so far away from simple solutions. But for me it was about simplifying the stage before pen-to-paper and having simplicity influence any and every action or interaction within what would come after. Constantly and consistently removing superfluous fluff and focusing on what specifically matters to any given business. Simplicity also had practical implications on the business; things like simple pricing structures, simple communication and simple no-nonsense vocabulary. I wanted to build something that pulled back the curtain a little and got rid of those unnecessary smoke and mirrors.

It was round about this part of the process that I realised that this ‘new’ thing didn’t have a name. For what felt like an age but in reality was probably only a couple of weeks I’d got really far into the ‘what’ the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ that I’d failed to acknowledge the ‘who’, ‘who is this?’ ‘Who is going to be doing all of this groovy stuff’ and then Fabric just sort of fell out of the sky. It was this definition that cemented it as the clear and obvious next step for me: 

Fabric. (Noun):

the basic structure of a society or culture…

Not so much fabric as woven material but fabric as the framework or structural integrity of a business or a society. Within a matter of seconds the name fit like a glove and at that moment Fabric was born.

In the spirit of collaboration this wasn’t a sole effort. A major part of this exercise was to share the load across people who could do certain things better than me. With that in mind thanks to Freya for being my right hand creative gal throughout this year. Having two sets of eyes on stuff throughout this process has been invaluable so thank you for that. Cheers to Luke for his words of wisdom, literally. Thanks for writing copy that instantly resonated with where I wanted to go and really stoked the fire for this whole endeavour. Thanks to Fee for her stellar work on the showreel and all things motion; bringing our existing work to life was an essential and rewarding part of the process, so thank you for that! And thanks to my consistently better half Amy, thank you for bearing with me, thank you for listening so brilliantly when a huge proportion of what’s being said is usually either dull, nonsensical or both. 

So yeah, this is Fabric. A branding agency that helps purposeful brands reach their people.