Five minutes with Alex Evans and Dines
In a joint interview, Dines and Alex Evans, respectively co-founder and creative director and co-Founder and COO of design agency Studio BLUP, speak to Transform magazine about how to build brands and audiences before the market becomes saturated, and how to stay on the pulse of the new culture ahead of competition.
How do you build a team that’s at the forefront of change and immersed in the new culture?
Alex: At BLUP everyone understands our core values; forward thinking, open-minded, finger on the pulse. This helps us bring in people that are the right cultural fit. Our ethos is that we live, learn and connect the new culture, so we have to make sure this is organically engrained in everyone and everything we do. Part of this is encouraging new skills, researching new things and keeping others inspired across the agency.
Dines: We’ve purposely put a lot of time into building a strong brand. Alongside that has come a strong online and offline following. This helps hugely in scouting and attracting the best talent out there. Having relationships with the top design universities has also proved beneficial, as we can keep an eye on up-and-coming talent.
How do you build brands and audiences before the market becomes saturated?
Alex: For us, it’s about staying ahead of trends or creating them ourselves, so that when implementing them into brands they’re still fresh. Brands then receive optimal engagement before the vast majority and audiences experience something novel.
Dines: Everyone at BLUP has a sharp eye as to what to keep watch for. We’ve purposely built an in-house culture of discovering interesting and new patterns and trends, and then looking at how we can spin them to make them useful for the brands we work with.
How do you ensure that brands are at the right place at the right time?
Alex: By working closely with brands, we understand their current and future challenges. This enables us to be ready to implement the right forward-thinking solution at the right time.
Dines: Part of BLUP’s process when working with brands is that we do in-depth trend workshops to show what’s up and coming and what might be relevant or of interest. We can then focus on specific ideas that are mutually agreed as the way forward.
How did you build Studio BLUP and how did you develop it over time?
Alex: We met at Southampton Solent University, where we studied Graphic Design together. We then went onto living together for a few years, so we know each other inside out. Dines started doing small design jobs while still at University to service the local clubs, so that’s when Studio BLUP was born.
Dines: After graduating, Alex realised his passion was in the business side of the design industry so went on to complete a Design Management masters. We had a quick discussion in the pub and agreed to go at the agency world together. Alex would sort the business side and I’d take care of the creative. Neither of us had an agency background so we didn’t bring any clients or agency experience, resulting in a lot self-learning and a bit of blind navigating at the start. This meant a lot of hard lessons early on. It also gave us a thicker skin – failing faster meant we learnt faster.
