More aliens, fewer unicorns

Bringing our brand to life in our new office

Philippa Dawe
Aug 31, 2018 · 3 min read
Stevie T bringing our kitchen mural to life.

One of the funnest (yes, that IS a word) parts of my job, is looking after not only the design of our products, but the brand of Flux Federation itself.


Our kitchen was one place we could really bring the brand to life. The kitchen is where our people go to eat, chat, collude and relax. We wanted to make this an extra special place for them to hang out. So we got in touch with artist Stevie T to give one of the walls some love. And here’s Steve in action… (hit ‘play’ on the video below)

Time lapse video of Stevie T. bringing our kitchen mural to life

Behind the brief

Now, I’m a stickler for Creative Briefs. I can–and will–spend half a day crafting important ones. But time was super-tight, so briefing this job mainly happened over the phone and via email. We were moving into a new office, there were a million jobs to do, and this was just one of them. But a fun one.

Here’s how the briefing–and going from visuals to starting the mural–played out…


Philippa:

“Hi Stevie T! Awesome to speak to you and hear that you’re keen to work with us. Here’s a brief brief;

Help us make an energetic and fun space for our crew, that reflects our brand and what we do.

Who are we and what do we do?

We make buying power different, fun and engaging for customers. Mostly, we’re in our mid 20s to mid 40s, with peeps from all over the world (27 countries at last count). If we’re going to disrupt an entire industry, we need to do things differently; be brave and experiment. Our company name Flux Federation has ‘UX’ in it — and that’s deliberate. We may make software, but people are at the heart of everything we do.

Themes: Space, space travel, electricity, and energy.

How’s that? Anything else just sing out! Looking forward to working with you! Cheers, Philippa”


Stevie T:

“I’m really excited to do this !! Here’s a concept for the wall,

Thanks Steve”

Draft 1. Too many unicorns

Philippa:

“LOVE IT!

The only thing I reckon is that it may not need the arrows around the edge — they’re constraining everything into a box — what do you think? And maybe we need an alien or two? Perhaps less horses/unicorns?”


Stevie T:

“I had thought about that –“the constraining arrows up the sides.” I can ditch them for sure and maybe replace with something more interesting. How about taking out the unicorns down below and turning some of the sci–fi characters into aliens etc. instead? I like the Space Unicorn dropping power off, but without the arrows up the sides and unicorns below there is more room for aliens.

S”

Draft 2. Less unicorns.

Philippa:

“Perfect!

Only one change… please change “Power to do what you want” to “You’ve got the power”

And then we’re signed off! :)”

Then Steve worked in record time, starting and finishing this 6m x 3m piece in just two days. Cheers Stevie T!

And now our crew has somewhere extra special to hang out. And–actually– there are more than one or two unicorns amongst them.

I hope you enjoy the video of Stevie working his magic. If you want to find out more about our company culture you can find out more on our site.

Humans of Flux Federation

People. Power. Possibility.

Philippa Dawe

Written by

Chief Product Officer at Flux Federation.

Humans of Flux Federation

People. Power. Possibility.

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