Be Bold

As a company we believe that we’re only at the start of our journey and only now with some perspective and experience behind us, do we have the luxury of being able to revisit the foundations on which our business has been built.

It might sound clichéd but we do believe that we’re representing the next generation, the future of the British design scene.  Not in a contrived, self fulfilling or egotistic way.  Just in terms of sentiment, in terms of our evolution within the industry, in terms of our collective beliefs. We’re very humble in this respect.

For us, we’ve never been too concerned about ‘the industry’ or getting caught up in the hype, it’s more of a question of ‘being’, finding a place within the society in which we live in and committing to achieving our goals and our aspirations. As directors, our own personal ambitions have been caught up in the last fifteen years of building this brand, something that we feel is very much still in its infancy. We’re representing a voice, standing up alongside our peers, a handful of young British brands who occupy a similar place in the market and are appealing to a cohort of designers who are now succeeding in their careers too and occupying senior positions within some of the most renowned design practices.

It is these people who are the ones who really engage with, they’re the folk who understand why we do what we do, what our brand and our culture stand for, because like us, they share similar aspirations and influences. Music, fashion, popular culture, technology, travel, it’s all in here; we’re just bottling it up into a brand that happens to develop beautiful products. We have been beating this drum for over a decade now and the words of Bizz Stone, founder of Twitter, really resonate:

‘It takes ten years to become an overnight success’.

In this respect, success in our eyes depends on our happiness and our ability to continuously move towards our goals. As always it goes back to our vision of developing one of the worlds leading design brands. Now that’s not something that’s going to happen overnight. It means that as a company we’re in a constant state of evolution, morphing and developing, ebbing and flowing, continuously growing and trying new things in terms of promotion and product development, people, planning.

In the 6th century the Roman philosopher Boethius wrote:

"Mutability is our tragedy, but it is also our hope. The worst of times, like the best of times, are always passing us away."

Try and try again, accept change, try new things, this has always been a big part of our philosophy. We’ve always liked the analogy of the Green Man. Standing at the level crossing do you wait for the system, the green man to tell you what to do? Or do you look left, look right and assess the risk for yourself, take control and step out into the throng?

Balancing this risk is exciting because people have always said it can’t be done. “You’ll never compete in such an established industry”. What more of a challenge would anyone ever need? We can compete and we do win business and as we keep growing the business we’re winning is becoming more and more significant too, which inherently means that someone else is missing out. Now this isn't said in a callous way, it's just that the traditional routine of promoting yourself in a set way, being part of the system and following the leaders doesn’t necessarily guarantee reward anymore. It’s certainly not our style. It’s time for a shift change.

Yes we’re inspired by great companies but we’re not trying to imitate what others have achieved. That approach just won’t stand up to the future, to whatever trend, threat, or technological development is round the corner.

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We like to think that one of our key motivators relates to inclusion, be it creatively, or collaboratively. This concept is one of the reasons why we began and one of the main reasons why we continue. To be inclusive is to accept change and to embrace evolution and it is this inherent mutability that inspires us to keep going.

We do this because our belief is that we are all equal.

Our team share these philosophies too and we’re fortunate to have the ability to attract like minded individuals who share our ideals of supporting, nurturing and inspiring each other in order to create a unique culture and a platform for young designers.

We’re also motivated to do this in the most friendly way possible, not exploiting the environment or our fellow citizens. Yes we can create beautiful, functional and competitive products that are made locally by expert craftsmen who agree that good design can change the world for the better, but there’s more to it than that. In adopting this approach we can care more for our environment and hope to leave a positive legacy for future generations and if we can leave even a 0.1% improvement within this world then we will have achieved our goals and will be leaving something positive for our own children. After all we’re of the age now where our thoughts start to shift toward the next generation!

When all’s said and done, we constantly strive to remain at the crest of the wave, challenging the status quo and experimenting with new ideas. People might follow these ideas and imitate but we’re happy with this. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, we just want to make sure that our personal values of fun, quality and longevity are aligned with our company philosophy and mission.

The very essence of being Deadgood and a real reason to get out of bed in the morning.

After all we like being Deadgood and hope you will too.