Happy birthday, Brinkworth! 35 years of championing human connection in design

0:11Hello and welcome to The Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. This week we're wishing a happy 35th birthday to our friends at Brinkworth, the global design company creating spaces that build strong connections between people and brands. Online we're losing some of the nuance of the design or the details of the design and so that's where you end up in this very bland place. We are a company that cares about the details and I think that the details are being lost actually in a lot of projects. This is The Entrepreneurs, with me, Tom Edwards.

0:59You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. Now, it's always a delight to make new friends by meeting them here in the studios at Monocle Radio. It's also a treat, though, when you get the chance to welcome friends back to Studio One. Adam Brinkworth, founder of the eponymous design agency, and his colleague, strategy lead Nick Roberts, are two such. Last guests on the show back in 2023, we thought it was a timely moment to catch up as the business is 35 years old this summer. With its people-first approach, its fascination with the creative power of shared human experiences, and its deep convictions that, well, that details matter now more than ever, Brinkworth is a business that we think deserves a little bit of a birthday party.

1:40So it's a pleasure to welcome Adam and Nick back to the studio. Gents, hello. It's great to have you with us again. And Adam, I'll throw this first question to you. Tell me, how does it feel to be 35 years young? Completely overwhelming. Thank you very much for coming to our party. It was my favourite part of it. And I thought you might say I'm now 59 and a half years old and the company is 35 years old. It was a great party. if there's one thing the company's always been good at is people and sociability and coming together and yeah thanks for coming although it was we very kindly we designed the Aerie store and they gave us the space for the evenings party and it warmed up by DJing which was fantastic we had some great music like Matty playing the Wilson brothers even my son Brinks DJed as well which was great and we had a really really good turnout and I think I was thinking about this in terms of a 35th birthday party and the idea about sociability and collaboration the space was designed to be a venue and then we were lucky enough to use it as our own venue for having our own party big thanks to sofia and nikki and marvin and everyone at aries they even designed a t-shirt and i ended up spending way too long in the t-shirt giveaway room you remember when you were one of the early guests and at one point about an hour in i thought i haven't said hello to anyone other than hand out t-shirt so i then was quite overwhelmed by the room suddenly being full of people having a great time but that was i mean nick was very you know really helped putting that party together as well as delilah in our office and i just think good people make some good stuff you know so we had aries there playing with us it was basically a joint party together because they brought their whole office we had blondies a great little beer brewery company out in clapton straight out at Clapton.

3:28Again, I can attest to the merits. They make really brilliant rainbow coloured custom beers. And then we had some friends at Cockfighter. We've just been designing some stuff for them a little. Just by chance at the end of the road, there's a chicken joint and we're designing some new work for them, Troy and Tristan at Cockfighter. So they did the food. And I don't know if you just put everybody in the room and then you put great beers, great food, some great music. You know, it was really lovely to actually use the space for ourselves. And lastly, so that I'm not over talking this the staircase that we talked about last time we were on the show which was this staircase made out of scaffold and then all the leftovers of the granite all around London made into lots of different steps it was really lucky the rostrum of the staircase which is the social area the top shelf happened to be exactly the right height for a DJ table so we made as a custom piece a bolt-on DJ stand that had all the modern stuff CDJs as well as Technics decks and had a huge sound system in there and then that was a gift back to Aerie so now whenever they have a party they can just you know bolt together break it out huge DJ table and bolt it to the staircase and it has another life I suppose it could be used for a bar as well truth be told we were ready to party at our 30th which you know probably makes more sense than the 35th but um well as you know 2020 was not an easy year so we didn't do it then but um we couldn't wait till we were 40 so we thought we'd jump in at 35 but yeah i think to adam's point you know we like a good party and we like to be together in the physical space which is which is what we're all about really here i think there's a few things that i want to pick up and if there's a sort of red thread that i guess runs through what you're talking about whether that's the absence of human connection in 2020 or for that period to the power of coming together these are things that run through clearly the approach of the business since the beginning but also of the projects.

5:16And I guess, Adam, let me ask you a little bit about that from a kind of business, well, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, I guess it's easy to talk a good game about making sure that the projects are imbued with those values, that you only hire people who buy into that. But presumably, as you grow, pressures become more urgent, the scale of everything is bigger. How hard is it to stick to that principle? It was foundational 35 years ago, it still is now. Has that been a challenge or actually is it quite, I don't want to say easy, but have you managed that fairly easily, do you think? I think it's a fairly recent thing.

5:53I would say with the rise of digitalization, maybe around 2010, was that when Instagram and Facebook were around? I think then there's a social change which led to the different ways that people are shopping and interacting with brands. And I think that's what's led to. So I would say, yes, we've always enjoyed having good people around us and working for good people, working with good people and making sure that's a positive relationship. But it's more to do with the change in the sociology and psychological changes due to digital. Everyone's on the phone and that has changed the way we've looked.

6:29Rafa was one of the first examples, which becomes a cliche now, but has a coffee bar, had a social area. You could interact with a brand. We'd have talks, exhibitions and the space would be moving. So what are the reasons? I mean, last time we spoke, we spoke about Marnie. What were the reasons to go to a physical space over shopping digitally? And the big difference is, of course, that is where you really get to meet the brand and get to meet the people and bring them together and build a brand community. And so I would say that's been progressively changing over 10 years. Not as a big plan to do that, but more to just react to what's actually happening out there.

7:05And done well, the two things really, really complement each other. That's really interesting. And then with your strategist hat on, you've got to sort of formalize that approach and those values into advisory, into the work that you then do. Having that interest in that area, does that make it easier to resist what I know you guys refer to as like the sort of blandification by digitalization? It's being accelerated by AI. Is it almost easier to do it because you've got this sort of almost more principled stance, do you think? Well, I think so. I mean, I think, you know, we are a company that cares about the details.

7:37Right. And I think that the details are being lost, actually, in a lot of projects that we see. I think one of the things about, you know, AI, I don't want to kind of moan about AI, or certainly don't want to come across as a Luddite. But what I see is the way that it's affected how people are working and what clients expect from us, right? So they expect things a lot quicker. So therefore, we're kind of getting rid of some of the process. and because of online meeting technology etc we can all be having meetings somebody's driving a car somebody's doing their emails and actually the kind of attention to what we're doing and being present on the actual project is maybe not as much as it should be and so we find ourselves doing much better work when people come to our space they come to meet as we sit around the table and we work through things together and actually just the act of being in our space is kind of living by the rules that we want to kind of deliver for our clients it's like come be in the space and let's work on this project for you you know which is all about making a physical space for people to come together that's actually really interesting nick to turn it around to actually about the process because the process is the is a thing with and the relationship between a client and the client at the end of the day has the main choice of how you work together we're often having i mean yes we're not ruining the planet by jumping on airplanes every single time but i think it's quite interesting that when we had a 25th birthday party a thousand people came and they came from all over the globe this time i don't know there was maybe three or four hundred people it was smaller and not so well traveled but i think what nick's we joked yesterday and this might shut up business there might not be a 36th one but for us it works really well if everyone's in the room or if everyone's online and it's great not to be flying all over the planet and wasting all that fuel and upping the carbon count.

9:29But when we've got a mixture of people on the screen and people around the table, it's really hard to balance that communication. I noticed this week we were talking to a new client. The other people are zooming in on one side. And when I'm talking, they're looking at my ear, not at myself, you know. And so the engagement and the building relationships is what it's really about and having the right people together. And I think building the right collaboration the relationships takes imagine now if someone else was joining in on satellite over in this top corner it's very very well it's a good point we do it on radio we can connect over and obviously if we're covering a news event you need to be on the ground but actually for a well it's called face to face i want to be able to look i don't know whether you guys want to look my ugly mug direct in the eye but it's a different conversation right when you're and you can read body language and you can pick up nuance it's really important i think nuance is the right word right and if we kind of parallel nuance with detail in design right so online we're losing nuance and therefore like if we're kind of shortcutting the process we might be losing some of the nuance of the design or the details of the design and so that's where you end up in this very bland place where you know it's just very kind of referential and and not really considered in in the way that we'd we'd like it yeah it's the incidental moments that happen you know we were i think i can say we're working for vans i won't say what it is because it's new stuff but the things that happen incidentally when you're having a coffee or the body language you read when you show someone the design they're like hell no but they might be polite on zoom and you can't catch it it's really really important that and it's the same with us in in the office you know there are times where it's brilliant to work remotely when you're doing a drawing pack or something it just needs to be sit down quiet and methodical but when you're working creatively on concepts with a client or with people in their own team.

11:22It's the fun that happens between. It's the mistakes. It's if I'm drawing something, Nick's drawing something, I'll look at your drawing and think, oh, yeah, that's given me something else. If you're on Zoom, you can't see it. It's not the same as on the screen. I always use the word serendipity, just good fortune, because so often, certainly in our office, and these are the values, you know, my monocle's the same, and going early into these shared experiential spaces, a shop, a cafe, and looking at how that can broadcast what the brand means, the sort of meaning behind things. But you'd lose so much good luck if you weren't in the same office.

11:55People say, oh, Adam, did I hear you mention so-and-so? I know, da-da-da. You know, you'd just lose that opportunity to cut to the chase. And it's also the accidents, real human interaction that, you know, and bringing people together. I know lots of people have ended up talking with each other about other things based on meeting each other at our party, for example. And that is always the case. But I think circling back to your piece it's quite interesting we had the royal college of art come in yesterday i'll say one thing i almost made me cry but i once went to the rca in the jurassic period and then left college in the burassic period i think it was a long long time ago i just came back to the office after lunch i didn't know they were coming there are a huge amount of people outside the pub on the corner i thought my goodness monday that's busy pub time you know at the sun and it turned out the students asked what practices they'd like to visit in London.

12:47And very flatteringly, they said, oh, we'd really like to come to Brinkworth. And the entire course came. So they had to come in two halves, which was really very special to see them and have our doors open. But when we were talking about our process and trying to talk through the stages of which we do, it seems, especially with AI, and again, I'm not a lot, I'm actually fascinated in AI and I can tell you a reason why after, But I noticed that the conceptual parts and the ideas are well paid for, but a client's capacity or desire to pay for the scheme and the detail and the craft and the execution isn't the case.

13:27and I would say of our business and a real challenge over the years it's we'd love to do a good idea that's appropriate to a brand we'd like it to be really well crafted so you actually really feel the space and that things have been cared for like collaboration between people is the same as collaborating on materials they all have to fit succinctly and complement each other and that does take an awful long time actually the last part or can do whereas the value is usually in the front part not the end part but the time to do it i think is skewed the opposite way around so from an industry point of view i think it'd be nice to readdress that yeah absolutely i mean i think that goes back to that attention span thing again you know it's like people just want it quickly you know they want they want to see the the end results and it's got to be shiny and and viral ready or you know um and you know grid ready or however they put it but you know i think what we see and you know back to the blandification thing is that actually a lot of that stuff is kind of very surface level and you know we're trying to sort of come back to these kind of foundational principles really about design that are rooted in function and detail and and you know thinking about kind of how we experience space and materials from a human point of view do you think is time one of the hardest things to i guess you have to re-explain strategically to a client or to a prospect why it takes that long it is do you agree with that is that often a pinch point it's like well but if it's a good idea why can't you just absolutely deliver it to us yeah yeah yeah we have to we have to talk them through the process and say trust us we've been going for 35 years you know this is what it takes to deliver this level of quality and some things can't be shortcutted you know because and i think that's that you know we're we're living half our lives in the digital world and half in the physical world and we're not quite connecting those two things you know and I think it's you know a message really to brands actually one of the things we talk about is that the physical space can be the purest form of the brand right because if you've built a relationship with your audience online and everything's backlit and glossy and just absolutely the life that you really want to live and then you go to the physical space and it doesn't match that so almost the physical space has got to be better than that online experience and so you know that's what we're dealing with and and that's what we're trying to deliver for our clients i guess well before i talked to you i was looking at the so good so far like almanac book i don't know whatever i don't know how you describe your publications they're always really interesting and just looking at the diversity of projects by scale geography ambition and it was really interesting give me a couple of examples and i think look i don't know what the most sort of celebrated works.

16:13You're probably bored of being asked about, I don't know, Supreme or something like that. But these are ones I'm sure if people say, oh, I had the Brinkworth guys in, they'll know that project. Why is that? Is there a universality to it? Is it because it was just brilliant work executed well? I mean, give me a couple of examples. Maybe I'll start then. I'm happy to answer Supreme questions. Okay. I'm never sure. Because I'm in love with them, of course. You do Supreme and are they? Yeah, you throw something in. And different brands need different approaches. They don't always have the same one.

16:43But I think one of the things I really respect about the work with Supreme is it's actually slow, not fast. It's really well cared for. It's generously looked at as a very good, tight team that communicate really well as a brand with us. and I think rather than changing things for the sake of it in this instance it's a more static space that really really is a venue for showing the fashion the music the art you know and the care and I spoke before I think we spoke sometimes it's just a gentle move on you know you don't always have to just change things for the sake what's the value in changing things what's the outcome what does it mean what does it mean to the people and the participants within the space and I'm very proud of the new store in Miami.

17:35It's a cracker and it's a bit like, I quite like doing the same things again and again and just thinking, even if you don't have a great new conceptual idea, you should always be aware of what you want to push and what you want to change. But sometimes just adapting to the space. I think the last time we came here, I'd spoken about the bowl that we've designed collaboratively with and there's a great team behind that, engineers and Steve Budget, that had to sweep underneath the beam so that you didn't knock yourself out skating it. So therefore it created a different language for a ramp. This time was the same in Miami.

18:08We took the whole inside out of the building so that we could have this incredible kind of, I want to say lucky horseshoe, although my hands look like it's a shape of a bottom, but it created a different way to ride in a different form because it's suspended. And it was the first one that's elevated. So you actually shop underneath. And for one of the spaces, it's very much store first and ramp second, but it really complements each other. Also, everything fitted by chance really, really well in the building. And then some of the other interesting that interests me in terms of creativity is sometimes you get great ideas from a client.

18:45Sometimes they come from our office. Sometimes they just come by mistake. You know, when we did the large store in LA, I went mid-site, and it's so important, one of the students at the RCA is saying, do you ever go to site? I'm like, as much as we can because there's real value in seeing the space and feeling the space because that's getting close and intimate with the proportions of it and also if you're going through the process you might want to change some things but in LA to cut a really long story short there was a perforated cover mesh that went underneath the roof and I walked in while Steve and his team were building the ramp and it had the most amazing mottled light and then that was lost when we put the roof on top and I thought oh that's a kind of that's a lovely thing it feels like you're in the forest or something and when we had the Miami store to do next that's south facing it's broad it's pretty bright out there you know and therefore we use some of the same material approach to the facade so that when you go into the space it has this really beautiful model light had i not done it later we wouldn't have never had that well that's a bit of that you said a bit of luck some it is that serendipity again isn't it to a degree happy mistakes uh nick tell me give me another example so i'm gonna give you i'm gonna go to a much smaller brand but probably my favorite client of ours at the moment it's a brand called rad R.A.D.

20:00Rally Against Destruction, I think that stands for. And they are a kind of challenger sportswear fitness brand. Phenomenal story. Guy called Benjamin Massey. You can check them out. I mean, this guy, you know, he wanted to start a brand. OK, everybody can make a T-shirt. He wanted to make a training shoot. Right. It's notoriously difficult. And he set out to do it. and he has he's achieved it and they're just a very interesting brand you know I think what's happening in sports at the moment is really fascinating you know it's like it's really this kind of thing about perfection and being the best you know that that's slightly shifting and and you're starting to see brands coming at it from a different way more almost more human approach you know like it's not so much about complete perfection but it's about you know the best that you can and also just recognizing that this brand lives in the context of like rave culture and you know so it's it's sort of it's an interesting brand and i i we're working with them on we designed a kind of shopping shop for them and and we're starting to do some other bits for them working in their offices and i just think they're going to be i think they've got they've got it right and i think they're going to do something really interesting and you know there's a lot of shared values there and i think that really helps with the working relationship watch this space on that one.

21:22Let me ask you a couple of questions as we sort of tick towards the end. Adam, this is a slightly kind of abstract, I guess it's sort of semi-philosophical question. Do you think you would or could start Brinkworth now? He's smiling. He's smiling and looking thoughtful. You asked me a tricky one last time. I like to test you. Last time you said, what would I do to advise someone coming into the business? And I thought about an answer for that one last night, which was make sure you keep good people around yourself. And I am tirelessly engaged with what's next and the playfulness and creating physical things.

22:06And I'm just naturally very curious. So I would hope so. I hope that I'm better to work with now, years on, than I used to be. Less of a tyrant and less controlling. and I've realized working with people, not everybody can do everything. You need to take a long-term view and actually have great collaborators within the office. So yes, I hope so. I love it. Look, that's literally hopeful. I've been asked for years and years, when you're retiring, and I just read that book, Ekakai or something. Have you read that book? And it basically is a philosophical way of living in Japan. And basically the opening line was, don't retire, otherwise you'll die.

22:46If you don't have a purpose and you don't keep moving, what on earth would you do? Please don't. There's too much good work to do. Let me ask you a sort of corollary question then. And this is a little bit of more hands-on business function. Do you find these great clients, you mentioned Supreme, one of longstanding, a rather bit newer, do they find you? Or is it, again, is it a little bit of this funny serendipity and that's where the great relationships start? Just typically, how does it work? Historically, a lot of people have come to us, let's be fair and be honest about that. But we also have people on our list that we want to work with, you know, and we go after them.

23:24We're doing more of that than we used to, to be honest, just because of the climate. And, you know, it's about trying to find people that we know that we can have a good time with and we know will value what we bring. I'd say it is a lot harder. You know, everybody's competing for space on social media. Yeah. It used to be a very simple, I used to hope that 80 % of our clients or so, or all of them, would come because they had a great time or they heard that we were good to work with and they got a good outcome. And then I was staggered to find that something like 65 % of everyone we worked for used to just come straight off the website that would literally go, design, maybe we want it in London, maybe, you know, we would come up.

24:05But I think getting airtime and being seen and having a point of difference is harder and harder, right, with algorithms. It's really harder to. And it's maybe harder to even come up with creative ideas because we're bombarded with so much stuff. You know, if I shut my eyes, I think I don't want to see another really beautifully designed architectural space with a blobby piece of sculpture inside that means nothing. You know, it's literally a static showroom. And most stores that are fashionable look like that. I think that sounded negative, but I do. I think it's good to be aware of what's...

24:38Constructive criticism is welcoming. It's a safe space. Come on, it's what a space, you know, do less of them and do them really well. And it's what a space does, not just what it looks like. Okay, quick fire. Very last question. Nick, I'll come to you first of all. What are you most excited about? I think I probably did this last time. Let's roll it out again. Well, I think one of the things that I'm going to plug... That's fine. ...is that we are actually opening our doors for the first time to LDF Festival in September. And, you know, this comes about really as to kind of combat all of this stuff that we've been talking about.

25:09All right, here we are saying, look, we all need to be together and be in the physical space and, you know, share ideas and actually be there to feel it. So what we've decided to do is open up the doors, 35 years of Brinkworth. We're going to kind of have a bit of a meander through some of the objects, some of the projects, some of the paraphernalia of the fun that we've had in the last 35 years so yeah do come join them you might get you might get a colorful beer and or a t-shirt who knows exactly definitely get some music because i think there are there are very few people that don't dj in our office and we've got a great set of techniques decks and master sound sound system so ready if you're asking me that question yeah go on i didn't want so what would be your pick you know what i'm most excited about i had very little to do with it and i returned from denmark on holiday yesterday morning and And we've been doing a local project with a guy called Michael who runs the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve.

26:06There's a little bit of wasteland near our office. And we set an internal project to design some bird boxes for them and to make them and to prototype and help them. And I returned to the presentation and the award ceremony yesterday morning. And Michael came in and Howard, he's director of resources and practice director, actually had got back on the tools. and design the most incredible Sparrow housing that we're going to produce. And then it was so good, Sam, our MD, said, everybody give up doing Sparrow. Howard's literally made 3D models, elevations. He was an RCA architect, so he knows what he's doing.

26:44And then Dylan's was completely the opposite, and Dylan won the prize for the Falcon one, which will then be housed on a building. So for me, that seemed like a really poignant, exciting, meaningful, and with the diversity of ideas in our office just based on something small and modest which has meaning if you're a local bird. That was Adam Brinkworth and Nick Roberts of Brinkworth. And as they mentioned, if you'd like to go behind the scenes and interrogate how they do things, Brinkworth are opening up the doors of their studio and their archive for London Design Festival here in the capital next month.

27:20Do be sure to pay them a visit. And if you want to find out more, in the meantime, head over to brinkworth.com.

27:35and that's all for this episode of the entrepreneurs we'll be back at the same time next week the program's produced by laura kramer with audio editing by jack jewers you can find out more and listen to the archive of the entrepreneur show at monocle.com that's where you can subscribe to the magazine and read more about better businesses every month or you You can follow us wherever you get your audio. If you'd like to contact the team, email Laura on lrk at monocle.com. I'm Tom Edwards. Goodbye, and thanks for listening to The Entrepreneurs.