STB Partners Q+A
We’re designers, not decorators
Managing and Creative Partner, Lois Blackhurst, on why creativity means nothing without a commercial edge – and why long-term trust is worth more than higher short-term fees.
How do you balance creative ambition with commercial reality?
Creative ambition without commercial delivery is just decoration. As graphic designers, we’re problem solvers – the work must look great and deliver results. That’s always part of our creative ambition.
At the briefing stage, we establish what success looks like for our clients, then we future-proof the solution so it works year-on-year and drives growth. We’re not just trying to solve the ‘now’. If it doesn’t work in the real world, if it doesn’t move the needle for the business, then it’s not ambitious – it’s indulgent. The designs must be commercially effective; that’s the bottom line.
What’s your approach to aligning design with business objectives?
We build partnerships, not projects. When you understand a client’s wider business strategy, you can align with them on each project, big or small. Even better, you can suggest ideas and opportunities based on that knowledge – often before they’re briefed.
We have relationships spanning 20 years, and that experience is priceless. We’ve grown, supported, changed and developed with those clients, so we can spot a problem or identify an area for growth before it’s even briefed in. That’s the advantage of working as genuine business partners rather than suppliers. You stop reacting to briefs and start shaping strategy.
What role should senior leadership play in the creative process?
It’s crucial. You need key decision-makers involved from the outset to ensure the project has the right resources, support to get the right approvals and insight, and alignment to the company’s vision. Everyone needs to be on that journey.
How a project is communicated internally is sometimes as important as the external assets, and it’s our job to support that journey. Without senior leadership engagement, you risk creating work that’s strategically sound but politically doomed.
When do you recommend bold creative versus conservative approaches?
The work always needs to be future-proof. We ask ourselves: what’s next, and what could that look like? Thinking about tomorrow, not just today, helps ensure the work will be category-leading and allows us to deliver something unexpected. Conservative approaches often mean you’re designing for where the market is now, not where it’s going. By the time that work launches, it’s already dated.
What are the advantages of being independent?
As an Employee Ownership Trust, everyone has skin in the game – a shared sense of purpose. You’re talking to the people who do the work. We’re all close to the projects, and there’s no unnecessary process. It means we can make agile, quick decisions.
We’re careful with budgets, and you don’t get passed between different teams. That independence also means we’re fiercely protective of the work and our client relationships. We’re not optimising for holding company profit targets; we’re optimising for doing great work that delivers results.
How do you leverage 37+ years of expertise?
Cross-sector learnings are so important. Working across retail, tech, construction, agriculture, banking – to name a few – we can take learnings from one category into another. It ensures our ideas are fresh and not staid or typical to the category.
When you bring retail thinking into B2B tech, or banking customer experience insights into construction branding, you naturally avoid the clichés that plague category-specific agencies. Our experience gives us confidence to tackle any sector or design problem, knowing we’ll be able to solve it.
How do you keep creativity playful?
One of our values at STB is not to take ourselves too seriously. The best ideas come from relaxed, collaborative environments where you can say any idea without fear of judgment. People like design that makes them smile. It’s human nature. And you can only come up with that level of design when you’re in that mindset.
Design is business-changing, and I don’t want to undervalue that. But it’s not often life and death, and there’s always a solution. The human, nuanced nature of design makes it special, and the process and environment must be right to get there.
