SERVICES
We provide a full spectrum of business services including strategy, consultancy, mentoring, automation, brand development and design.
We have produced solutions for fashion houses, film, galleries, tech and sports giants through to tv channels and national museums.
Experience
Over the last 25 years, the founders of Institute, have worked on thousands of projects that includes work for the following brands:
Adidas, Barclays, BBC, Bench, The Body Shop, Boots, The British Museum, The Carphone Warehouse, Cartoon Network, Cath Kidston, Clarins, Conde Naste, Daks, The Design Museum, Diesel, Disney Stores, EMI, Esquire Sport Magazine, Exposure, Fate Face, Fred Perry, Givenchy, Gieves & Hawkes, Godiva, Habitat, Halifax, Haribo, Harrods, House of Fraser, Hedkayse, HMV, The Independent, Kookai, Levis, Marks & Spencer, MGA, National Gallery, Procter and Gamble, Royal Court Theatre, Selfridges, Schuh, Sony, Superdry, TATE Enterprises, Ted Baker, Three Mobile, Tower Records, TKMaxx, UNIQLO, United International Pictures, Virgin, Vodaphone and Zoological Society of London.
We bring this experience of the design and delivery of a diversity of projects to Institute.
Business Development
We provide mentoring in business practice and development. We cover the progression of practice, the nuts and bolts of running a business through to brand strategy and development. We provide consultancy and think-tank style services for creative businesses, organisations and initiatives. We cover strategy, identity frameworks and business development. We are used to thinking outside the box and asking the right questions that result in the right frameworks for success.
Consultancy
We provide mentoring in business practice and development. We cover the progression of practice, the nuts and bolts of running a business through to brand strategy and development. We provide consultancy and think-tank style services for creative businesses, organisations and initiatives. We cover strategy, identity frameworks and business development. We are used to thinking outside the box and asking the right questions that result in the right frameworks for success. We often work locally and provide additional support with our co-working studio facilities at Institute in Loughborough UK.
We tend to focus on SMEs, as they are the collective powerhouse of the UK Economy and often do not receive the support they require. An external support structure characterised by objective analysis and targeted support is often a key mechanism for the success for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Our business consultancy is run by Steve Barradell. Steve is an approved business mentor for Enterprise Nation on the Help to Grow initiative.
Enterprise Nation exists to shortcut the route to trusted business support. Founded by Emma Jones CBE in 2005, Enterprise Nation has grown to a community of over 120,000 people. They support people to start and grow their own successful businesses and represent their views to the government and media: www.enterprisenation.com.
Steve is also a member of The Association of Business Mentors: www.associationofbusinessmentors.org and a Creative Business Mentor on the EMC2 Create Growth Programme: www.eastmidlandscreategrowth.co.uk
Our recent work includes the running of an incubator Course for Phoenix Arts (the REAL Initiative). We supported 25 Digital Artists and Documentary Film Makers in getting them business ready, providing them with strategic advice, support and mentoring and to create a platform for growth. We are about to start a short series of courses for East Midlands Creative Consortium: Conversations with a Machine
We have extensive experience in Branding , Business Planning , E-commerce, Communication, Freelancing, B2B Marketing, Data & Analysis, Problem solving, Strategy - both business and creative, Sales.
The Benefits of Mentoring
Gaining new perspectives
Since mentors, by definition, have more experience than their mentees, they look at the world with a different perspective. As each decision is considered, the mentor will bring an informed opinion to bear as it is likely that they have seen the pros and cons of this situation before.
Improved leadership abilities
A mentor often performs many leadership duties, such as inspiring their mentees, providing guidance, and even solving taxing problems. They may also give constructive feedback to their mentees. Developing these skills will help you become a better leader in the future.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurs tend to like ‘going alone’. Business owners will often state that If I had their time again, they would have worked with several mentors to learn valuable lessons from each. From not making certain business decisions to fostering certain partnerships, a mentor can help guide you through your entrepreneurial journey.
Networks and contacts
Your mentor has already acquired a variety of valuable contacts that could be out of reach to you. Your mentor can facilitate access and open doors, giving you the opportunity to develop your business and grow your network. Networking opportunities are often the key to business growth.
Confidence building
Confidence grows through the mentoring process. You will have a guide for the ups and downs of business and develop the ability to succeed.
The Benefits of Consultancy
You need an outside / objective opinion
Sometimes it’s difficult to solve your own problems because you’re just too involved. You might just be so close to the problem that you’re missing an obvious solution. When there are tough decisions to be made, sometimes it’s easier to leave it to an expert who isn’t personally involved or emotionally invested.
Business consultants are experts in their field. They’ve helped numerous other companies to work through similar issues and they know what’s worked in the past. This experience means that they can bring new and innovative ideas that you might not have thought of yourself.
When you hire a business consultant, you’ll get a new perspective on whatever problems you’re facing, from an outsider’s point of view.
You lack time or resources
No matter how important the problem is, sometimes you just don’t have the time to dedicate to solving it. You’ve still got your day-to-day business to focus on and finding the time to resolve your challenges just feels impossible.
You could hire a new employee to give you the time to focus on the issue at hand, but you know it’ll only be temporary and training a new employee can be time-consuming.
Hiring a business consultant is a great way to outsource your problems to a professional. They’re used to moving around different companies, which means they’ll get to know your business quickly with minimal training required. And most importantly – you can continue with your day-to-day operations so your business doesn’t suffer either.
You have a tactical project you are struggling to complete our to resource or expertise.
Design
We help creatives, brands and organisations to develop their ideas and to design solutions that communicate these ideas to their chosen audiences.
We believe in the maxim, Form follows function. The solutions that we produce should look, feel and essentially, be, the answer to your problem. Each problem requires a unique solution that emerges out of the design process. By going through the discovery stage to define the core problems to solve, we are then free to develop a solution that solves these unique problems and is fit for your purpose. This is a formula for success. It encourages clarity in the way we think about the project objectives. That aids communication with each other. This clarity allows us to get from A to B in an understandable way but allows us the freedom to produce dynamic solutions.
Projects Portfolio
Helping Crochyay Spread the Love
One of our key goals at Institute, is to empower local creatives. Olivia Fletcher talks about our work together with Crochyay and encouraging random acts of kindness…
One of our key goals at Institute, is to empower local creatives. Olivia Fletcher talks about our work together with Crochyay and encouraging random acts of kindness…
“In 2019, after struggling with my own mental health, I decided to start a crochet kindness project, where for 100 days, I left a flower with a label attached saying ‘if you found this flower and it brings a smile to your face, feel free to take it home’ in a random location for a stranger to find. I think my goal was to prove that even a tiny act of kindness could be enough to brighten someone else's day, and that it doesn’t always have to be a grand gesture.
After I’d been doing it for a couple of months I was contacted by the BBC and they said they wanted to make a short video about what I’d been doing. This ended up getting over 2 million views and I was then overwhelmed with people contacting me asking how they can get involved with a similar project.
I started off by making a facebook group called Random Acts of Crochet Kindness (RAOCK), where people could share their acts of kindness and seek support and inspiration.
From there I came up with the idea of The Flower Wall Project.
I loved the idea of there being this wall of crocheted/knitted flowers with blank labels attached, in a public space for anybody to take and pass on as an act of kindness. In that way, a person may leave their house with no intention of passing on an act of kindness, but if they see the wall, they may think ‘oh why not!’ and then an act of kindness is carried out that wouldn’t have been before.
Everyone is so busy in their own lives that they often don’t have the headspace to think about doing random acts of kindness, however when they see the flower wall it puts an idea in their head that wasn’t there before, and it often brings happiness to their day too.
So once this idea had firmly planted itself in my brain I had to figure out how I was going to make it work. I turned to my lovely friends for help and the RAOCK group (which by this point had 8000 members) and asked for donations of flowers, and was blown away to receive thousands of donations which I then attached blank labels to.
This is where Graffio Arts came in, they listened to me ramble on about my hopes and dreams with The Flower Wall Project and they helped me piece it together into a logical plan, even inspiring me with ideas I never would have thought of alone, and reassured me that it was all achievable.
Working with Graffio Arts has been so empowering, they didn’t just do everything for me, they taught me how to do it myself, from building the flower wall, to learning how to take it further.
When I was on my own, I felt like the Flower Wall was so far fetched, and probably never going to happen, but now with Graffio Arts’ support and the RAOCK group (which now has 18,000 members!) I’m allowing myself to dream even more about where it could go.
COVID 19 has hit everyone hard and I know there must be so many people feeling lonely and isolated, so the next goal is to take The Flower Wall Project online, where you can send a random flower to a friend or family member with a handwritten label and you just pay for postage.
In the future I would love to set up support groups where everyone comes together to talk about how they’re doing whilst crocheting flowers for the wall, and even lead workshops teaching crochet so I can hopefully inspire more people to get involved with the crochet kindness movement!”
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.