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Monday 8am - 4:30pm Tuesday 8am - 4:30pm Wednesday 8am - 4:30pm Thursday 8:30am - 4:30pm Friday 8am - 4pm

The LOFT

A branding agency creating beautiful websites, eye-catching graphics and brands that tell a story. We call it 'Design with Soul.' Hello, we’re the loft.

A design and branding agency based in Glasgow. We bring ideas to life in the most imaginative and effective way possible. Great ideas, outstanding delivery and a completely bespoke service are all parts of a very special client experience. You’ll love working with us.

‘Design With Soul’ is more than a tag-line, it’s a way of life.

29/08/2025

Quite the trip…

Achieving the seemingly impossible, working at the speed of light, solving real and significant problems (at-pace,) collaborating closely with those people that have inordinate amounts of energy, passion and drive. The relentless commitment to completion, the pleasant absence of politics and the feeling that everything you're doing is making a real and lasting difference to absolutely everybody that is taking part...

Yes, working with ’scale-ups’ has probably given us the most amount of professional satisfaction in our careers to date. Being both a witness and a protagonist in the awesome process of organisations, teams and people growing right in front of your very own eyes. It has to be one of the must humbling, fulfilling and enjoyable experiences in business. In fact, it goes way beyond business….

‘The Entrepreneurs LOFT’ is a spin-out of THE LOFT Branding Agency. It’s taking all our skills and experiences, built-up over a decade, and putting them at the service of scale-up founders, leaders and their teams. It’s being respectful of the fact that every scale-up journey is unique, every Founder is different, every ‘road to Rome’ is different. Whether it’s creating brands that build a community, driving sales to the absolute maximum, finding imaginative ways to communicate value or just helping good people to retain other good people.

It’s something we’ve been experimenting with (alongside main agency work) for quite a while.

Check out our digital flyer and drop us a line if you’d like to find out more…

18/06/2024

Knocking It Out The Park!!

Many of you will know the incredible work carried out by the Glasgow-based national charity MCR Pathways. An organisation that helps young people, who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own, to realise that bit more of their undoubted potential. They do this in a number of ways, pre-dominantly by providing mentors who volunteer an hour a week at schools all over the country.

The charity has been going for quite some time now and year after year they just knock it out of the park in terms of their impact. 5,109 young people supported, over 63,000 mentoring hours logged, 82.9% of MCR young people progressing to college, university or employment compared to a national average of 69.1%.

We were delighted to be given the opportunity to support the organisation in pulling together some of these incredible numbers, stats and stories with a bold infographic. The design had to get a lot of information across, showcase the impactful nature of their work and also fit on one page. Designed at a very important time for MCR Pathways and testament to the incredible work of all involved, we were delighted with the final results.

MCR Pathways, An Hour A Week, A Lifetime of Impact!!

20/06/2023

Beauty of The Creative Process!!

We presented THE LOFT to a few different organisations last week. As always, we painstakingly selected the most relevant pieces of work, we shared ideas of things we believe that can most help the client move forward, we presented the company, the culture, people, processes, etc, etc.

However, after a few good pitches, the image most clients seemed to come back too was this grainy camera-phone pic of our studio walls - an old print project showing messy sketches, print-outs of inspirations, post-it notes, etc. Anybody that knows us, knows this is how we work in the studio.

Great to see that, in the age of AI, that the basics of thinking, brainstorming, sketching, exploring creative ideas, discussing and debating still has a place. Maybe we're wrong, but it felt that the creative process itself may have more value than ever before.

29/04/2023

Check out Mentoring with MCR Pathways!!⁣
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Helping young people, unleashing potential, supporting society and the greater good, making a real difference in the lives of others and yourself too. Just some of the many reasons to consider becoming a mentor with MCR Pathways.⁣
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MCR Pathways are a national charity which supports young people, disadvantaged through no fault of their own, to create better lives for themselves with one-to-one mentoring. An organisation which has been going for more than 15 years and with over 1000 mentors who give an hour a week in Glasgow alone.⁣
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Right now they are looking for more mentors so please check out..⁣
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https://mcrpathways.org⁣
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(Little pic of our Founder Benedetto and Rio, his previous mentee on their very last mentoring session before he left St Rochs secondary school back in 2021. To steal one of the charity’s marketing Iines - one relationship, two lives transformed.)⁣
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15/01/2023

’Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.’

At the loft, we’ve been in the game a while now and experience has taught us that sometimes smaller actions done consistently well can bring faster, less costly and more impactful change than bigger (seemingly) more exciting actions.

In marketing terms, this may mean new website pages built on existing templates, email signatures showing the campaign of the day, infographics of stats you’ve been promising yourself for too long, new words, new pictures, video, etc.

Small actions working in a beautifully predictable and positive way for your business.

Compounding over time.

The Lean Marketer.

https://lnkd.in/e_J-pesb to read the full post.

04/11/2022

A Higher Idea.

‘The Godfather isn’t a mafia movie, it’s a film about Family, Capitalism, The American Dream...’

A great line from a great series ‘The Offer’ and one of the best explanations of the value of branding I’ve heard in recent times.

In this case the scene shows producer Al Ruddy trying to explain to a stubborn New York mob gangster why they should let him use their city to make the Godfather.

He sold the mafia man a higher idea.

All great brand-building is about doing the same thing - think of the well-known companies… Nike don’t sell trainers - they sell athleticism, IKEA may sell you furniture but they also sell Swedish functionality, Amazon sells just about everything under the sun but with their brand they are mainly selling convenience.

For our own company, we sell the full range of Brand-Marketing-Design services but for us we really want to sell and eventually deal with impact and growth.

The bigger, simpler and more compelling you can bring to life what you’re ‘really’ selling - the better your brand will do in the marketplace.

Part-10 of our Entrepreneurial Brand Marketing series. As always, If you’d like some help, give us a shout.

01/11/2022

New Blog Post..

We’re all such lazy people at times. Always were, the internet has just made it worst. Which companies do the best online? Those that make life easiest for their customers, for their audience. Silicone valley calls it ‘Frictionless Experience,' spiritual people talk about 'The Law of Non-Resistance,’ (which we quite like…)

However, we like to think of it as..

‘Making Life Easier For People’

A novel idea and Part-9 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.

We've lost count of the number of website updates, creative campaigns and general design projects that have been transformed with the simplest of small changes.

Websites in particular…

Radically more qualified leads generated with easy-to-find contact details on the home page, a few less fields on enquiry forms, with the copy written in plain (non-technical language) and service breakdowns in the footer, etc, etc.

Of course, the more savvy amongst you already do this and more - chat functions on websites, direct contact info for staff members, easy-to-understand service/product names, infographics for key messages. The true pros add another dimension - turning their board-rooms, their offices, even their factories into places that people just enjoy being in.

Several years ago, we were thrilled to collaborate with the master of ‘Frictionless Customer Experiences’ Alan Meldrum, a man who takes all of what’s said above to the nth level…

‘Making Life Easier For People.’

A Brand-Marketing game-changer.

12/10/2022

Short Sharp Messages!!

In world of clutter and noise, it is harder than ever before to cut through. Social media channels are brimming with content - videos, pictures, stories, information. Many people’s inboxes have 100+ unread messages and even our phones and mailboxes are bombarded with Stuff.

In such a chaotic environment, cutting through has probably never been more difficult, it’s enough to give Brand/Marketing folks a nightmare. And it shows no signs of slowing down - more social channels are coming, Web 3.0, even the old classics are fashionable again - Radio, TV, Direct Mail, etc. Our world is only going to get noisier.

The answer, we believe IS to do battle on as many fronts as possible for your brand. However, where we can set ourselves apart is by making sure every single communication’s message is crystal clear, to the point and exceptionally well-presented. One message per communication, two to three max and if you’re trying to say lots of things - they better be highly prioritised.

Short Sharp Messages across multiple channels give you the best possible chance to win hearts and minds. Bonus points for a bit of extra creativity too.

Our infographic work over recent years has been designed to (as clearly as possible) present lots of strong messages to our client’s audience over as long a period of possible. The Inspiring Scotland example below is a fantastic example. One main infographic with a simple but brilliant message about a successful programme turned into lots and lots of small impactful messages over the period of a couple of weeks.

Short Sharp Messages!!

Part-8 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand Marketing

11/10/2022

Branding, The Ultimate Team Sport!!

Who knew??

We’re always talking (probably a tiny-bit too much) about all of those lovely business benefits to branding, to marketing to what we do every day. More sales, better loyalty, higher margins, stronger positioning, business outcome X, business outcome Y and on and on it goes.

But one thing we’ve stumbled on over many, many years is that branding is a wonderful activity for building good will within your own team or teams, regardless if we are talking about finance, sales, product, etc.

One of the best things a company can do to bring together its people, give everybody a chance to contribute, share some ideas, have some laughs and genuinely involve everybody in making the company a better place, is to involve them in a creative project, preferably some kind of branding one. Branding really can be The Ultimate Team Sport.

Throughout the years, we’ve been a part of re-brands, value exercises, website re-designs, brand identity presentations, we’ve pitched to management teams, sales teams, production teams, investors, sometimes all at once. We’ve taken presentations out the board room and fielded what sometimes seem like the most random (but ultimately the most sensible) questions and despite the momentary discomfort - it’s always led us to better solutions.

When the guy in the production line’s words are used as part of the company’s values or the developers words are used as part of a marketing campaign or the CFO themselves has an idea for a logo image, everybody’s a winner.

Great brands always have lots of ideas behind them and lots of enthusiastic people contributing to those ideas - not just the seemingly creative folks…

How to make this happen? Simple - just make sure a couple of extra team conversations are factored into any proposal and maybe give your creative team a warning in advance that they’ll be presenting to everybody in the company and to be prepared.

If you’d like to know a bit more, drop us a line…

Branding, the Ultimate Team Sport!!

Part-7 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand Marketing.

Some amazing client contributions to some extremely successful creative projects below...

10/10/2022

Win | Win

Having some fun is just brilliant for your brand…

Clearly stating the obvious here but companies with vibrant cultures and happy people are a brilliant advert for your brand. It gives an impression of confidence and success and the good vibes are just magnetic in attracting people to your cause. Pictures of people enjoying themselves at work will always make a company website or social media post light up. Whether it’s sharing images of team-building events, fun days out or just people carrying out their tasks with a little joy.

At the loft, several years ago, we created a ‘Honey I shrunk the Design Team’ visual where we miniaturised our creative team and placed them into a stereotypical studio scene, a fun take on the 90’s movie.

A brilliantly successful visual too, it was used widely – as an intro to the home-page of our website, as covers on our social media channels, we used it in sales proposals and creatives pitches, etc. The image was both tremendously effective in attracting new people to our brand (clients and staff) but also incredibly good fun to do as well.

Part-6 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach To Brand-Marketing.

'Having fun is brilliant for your brand...'

07/10/2022

Give Something Away!!

At the loft, we love giving things away - we’ve hosted barbecues (or Lasagne Fridays) for people we know to meet in our studio, we've given away tips we’ve learned from building websites or setting up photography sets, we’ve done tote bags and corporate stationary too.

However, none have been as well-received as our ’Social Media Cheat Sheets.’ A one-page document, A4, easily printed, giving the latest tips of the day on when to post, what platforms and what time, etc.

A tremendous little giveaway shared on our website, our social channels, on our e-mail signatures, etc and one that we know many of our clients and friends relied on for their own social media activities.

Giving Something Away is 'Part-5 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.’

Giving something of value away can build good will with new customers, energise existing relationships, dial in greater loyalty, help to save a stuttering partnership or sometimes it’s nice to just do something good for the sake of it.

The free give-away has a big part to play in the sales/customer relationship cycle - whether the giveaway is something intangible like specialised advice, general consultancy, tips on how to do something better or something physical like corporate stationary, etc. Everybody loves high-quality tote bags, moleskines and coffee flasks.

Giving something away is also a brilliant way to energise a relationship, it gives companies a chance to serve customers before formally transacting with them, helps to put them in pole position for work to come.

Every successful company does it too - from fast food outlets giving out toys to top legal firms hosting events to give specialist advice on the issues of the day.

Give Something Away, Part-5 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing

If you’d like more info on brand-marketing for entrepreneurs, leave me a comment or drop me a line.

Have a wonderful weekend.

05/10/2022

Serve The Business First!!

'Part-4 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.'

Increasing sales, improved margins, greater customer loyalty, better staff relations, improved investor communications, a focus on a new sector or even a customer/location/product, etc…

There are many different reasons for doing a creative project, many different masters to serve…

However, at the loft, we believe the first and most important client for any creative project is the business itself.

A clear, unashamedly commercial focus is the best thing that can happen to a creative project. Whether it's building a new website, setting up an email system or just putting an ad on a bus. A focus on the commercial means everybody is clear on the objective, resources can be concentrated and contrary to what many expect - better for the creative too. A tighter spec allows for better ideas which can be brought to life faster - less process, less drift.

Taking that little bit more time in working out what the client wants, what they really want is definitely worthwhile. With greater understanding comes greater clarity and better creativity.

The website we built with the Percepta team several years ago demonstrates this to best effect. There were several clear priorities in the brief produced but key amongst these was the desire to showcase the more valuable composite services they provide to automotive clients to new and existing clients.

This clarity enabled special landing pages with beautifully-designed iconography, what’s more a beautifully presented case-study library showcasing many examples of their exceptional previous work with clients.

A truly outstanding result for everybody involved and a great platform for the creative team to work their magic. By serving the business first, we were much more able to build a website of true and lasting value to our client.

Part-4 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing

Address

86-90 Paul Street
Glasgow
EC2A4NE

Opening Hours

Monday	8am - 4:30pm
Tuesday	8am - 4:30pm
Wednesday	8am - 4:30pm
Thursday	8:30am - 4:30pm
Friday	8am - 4pm

Website

http://www.theloft.co/

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