Having reached such a major milestone, we’ve had a nostalgic look back over our amazing and diverse back catalogue of work for an equally diverse range of clients. The goal was for the team to agree on the top six projects. They could be the most creative, demanding, memorable or just those that we were most happy to work on.

Needless to say, selecting just six projects from over 10,000 was not easy. But, after much discussion and deliberation, the following is our final selection. Please find six of the best creative projects, and don’t forget to click on the title link of each to view the project.

Royal Opera House – advertising campaign: ‘The Business of Opera’

Dating back to 2012, our advertising campaign for Royal Opera House still looks fresh today. As a venue marketing specialist, we were approached by Royal Opera House and tasked to promote the availability of the prestigious location as a daytime business events venue. Our creative solution was not only significantly effective but highly clever too.
Our creative solution took much strategic thought but ended up being visually stunning – juxtaposing business writing implements wearing archetypal ballet & opera costumes.
The result was a head turner with strong and immediate eye-catching visual impact.
The success of the campaign, which featured at local bus stops & tube stations as well as trade publications, was significant with bookings up 25% on previous years.
But that was not its only success – this campaign is also memorable for winning Best Digital Marketing Campaign category in the 2013 Meeting Industry Marketing Awards (MIMAs)


Airbus – helicopter advertising campaign: ‘Think Helicopters’

Back in 2011, and having started to make a name for ourselves in the aviation & aerospace sectors, Design Inc were invited to pitch for a new advertising campaign for Airbus Helicopters (at that time, called Eurocopter). And this would see Design Inc traveling to Paris for the presentation and going up against some huge names in the design industry.
We were tasked with finding a creative and effective way to visually convey the five key sectors in which the helicopters would be utilised (eg. law enforcement, oil & gas, search & rescue, etc).

The whole team worked together, putting in some very late nights, and the creative concepts came together beautifully. Our solution was to strip it all back and simply show the helicopter landing on an item used to portray the sector.

Airbus liked what they saw and subsequently awarded us the contract. The advertising campaign would appear across both traditional and digital media all over the world and was intended to run for three years. however, due to the overwhelming success of the campaign – helicopter sales doubled in the first six months of the campaign – the contract was extended to five years.

Surrey Police – hate crime campaign: ‘Stop Hate’

We have delivered some great public information campaigns for Surrey Police over the years but 2019’s hate crime campaign will always be remembered as a Design Inc favourite.
Incidents of hate crime have risen over the years, with race, religion, disability, sexuality, gender and alternative subculture the trigger.
When we were asked to pitch an idea of a new advertising campaign, we kept it brutally simple. Our solution was led by the creation of a new brand logo – simply saying ‘Stop Hate’. We got a load of white cotton t-shirts printed with this logo and arranged a photoshoot of different people wearing it.
To reflect the different categories of hate crime, we create different backgrounds and, with the campaign set to launch in time for Woking Pride, the first advert in the series used the Pride rainbow as the backdrop. Moreover, many staff members of Surrey Police were in attendance wearing the t-shirt to further push the message.
The campaign ran across various platforms for a number of weeks and was used as part of citizenship classes in Surrey schools.
This was a great project to work on; a creative solution, a positive message and a very successful campaign – so much so, it was seen by Nottingham Police who approached us along with Nottingham BID for our support on another hate crime campaign.

Rock Flow Dynamics – brand ambassadors

2019 was obviously a good year for great projects, and this one was a rather unique experience. Rock Flow Dynamics is a highly specialist software company providing advanced modelling solutions to geoscience. Design Inc were approached to pitch for their new advertising campaign which was to run for two years.
The company wished to inject more personality into its advertising campaigns and our solution was to create a series of cartoon characters to act as brand ambassadors for the company.
This was a fantastic project and we can happily admit to having plenty of fun inventing Tim, Jim, Flo and Mo, from their facial expressions to their clothing, right down to their personality, hobbies and interests.
Tim and co were used as part of RFD’s marketing for two years, appearing in many advertising campaings, exhibition stands, direct mail and well as a puzzle-based desktop calendar.

NOV Elmar – corporate calendar ‘Toy Story‘

We absolutely loved working on this project and, 12 years on, it is still being spoken about.
In the Summer of 2009, we were approached by engineering specialists, NOV ASEP Elmar to help bring back their corporate calendar. They were after something awe-inspiring that would also help promote their products and services.
Our solution was entitled ‘Toy Story’ and was based on the simple question ‘What engineering toys did the NOV engineers work on when they were a child?’
For each of the 12 months, our team of creative designers set about recreating one of the client’s pieces of equipment (ranging from small items to multi-ton trucks) using a number of these engineering toys including; building bricks, fuzzy felt, balsa wood, needlework, Etch-a-Sketch, mould maker, Lego, Meccano, Airfix, etc.
July’s creative was a replica of one of the company’s trucks. The client loved that one so much, they commissioned us to create 20 of them to send out to each of their country managers.
Moreover, the client was so pleased with the end result that the calendar was entered for an award at the National Calendar Awards in early 2011.

Global Underwater Hub – ‘GUH News’ magazine

Design Inc has been responsible for Global Underwater Hub’s quarterly magazine since 2009. Whilst they are not our longest-running client (that acclaim goes to Bombardier Aerospace), this is by far, our longest-running project.
Published three times a year (sometimes quarterly), as of the time of writing, we have continually designed & published over 40 magazines.
Originally called Subsea UK, the organisation has recently gone through a big change and are now known as Global Underwater Hub.
And, whilst the publication promotes sector-related news, we’ve always ensured that the front cover is strategic, highly relevant, creative and eye-catching. As technology has developed, we’ve also been able to push our front cover concepts further – so now the publication also comes in a ‘web-enabled’ version which allows us to bring subtle movement to the front cover and the feature spreads within. The publication has been a labour of love to work on over all the years.

So, these were six of the best creative projects over our 25 year history. Did we pick your favourites? Have a look through our work and see if you agree with our choices!

>> 25 Years of Ideas. Read our Story.