Popping-in?

Our studio is filled with light and music.
There are multiple meeting rooms, a well stocked kitchen, and an indoor garden (with fishpond). Talk to us about access needs, environmental factors and any accommodations we might make to enhance your visit. Pop-in for tea and stay to use a spare desk for as long as you need.

11 Greenwich Centre Business Park,
53 Norman Road, Greenwich
London SE10 9QF

Cog is a Certified B Corporation

Public transport

We’re next to Greenwich train and DLR station. We have a door right on the concourse but it’s different to our postal address.

From Greenwich rail platform

This video shows the route to take from the train that will arrive at Greenwich rail station from London Bridge. There's a gentle slope next to the staircase.

From Greenwich DLR station

This video shows the route to take from the DLR that will arrive at Greenwich DLR station from Bank. There's a lift at the platform level if that's useful.

By car

If you have to come by car, we have a couple of parking spaces. We have a charging point that you are welcome to use if you have an electric car. Call ahead and we'll make sure the spaces are free. Use our postcode (SE10 9QF) to guide you in.

Get in touch

We’d love to hear from you. Use whichever medium works best for you.

11 Greenwich Centre Business Park,
53 Norman Road, Greenwich
London SE10 9QF

Cog is a Certified B Corporation

New project enquiry

It's exciting to chat about potential new projects. We don't have a ‘sales’ team or a form to fill in. Call us or give us a little detail via email and we'll get straight back to you.

enquiry@cogdesign.com

Website support

If you're a client then you'll be best served by calling us or contacting us via ClickUp, otherwise you can use this dedicated email that reaches all of the digital team.

digital@cogdesign.com

Finance questions

This email hits the inboxes of the people who deal with our bookkeeping and finances.

accounts@cogdesign.com

Just want a chat?

Sometimes enquiries don't fall neatly under a heading, do they?

hello@cogdesign.com

Cultural Calendar

A round-up of recommendations and reviews, sent on the first Friday of each month, topped-off with a commissioned image from a talented new illustrator. Sign-up and tell your friends.

Sign me up Cultural Calendar

Cog News

An irregular update of activity from our studio. Showing off about great new projects, announcements, job opportunities, that sort of thing. Sign-up and tell your friends.

Sign me up Cog News

Daren Cook at Typo Circle

Daren Cook at Typo Circle

Talks about branding can sometimes be an unprepared monologue through the speaker’s portfolio. Thankfully, we were taken on a well-thought-out journey through Daren Cook’s past and present projects with an emphasis on his ‘approach to branding’.

My first Cog night out began by entering the historic St Bride Foundation, an old publishing house just off Fleet Street. We were introduced to Daren Cook who, during his career, has worked for Wolff Olins, one of the leading agencies in branding, and collaborated with the late godfather of branding himself, Wally Olins. Nowadays, you will find him creating brands from his own self-named studio. Surprisingly, all this experience has shaped a refreshingly simple attitude to branding.

He began by telling us about ‘brand onions’, a diagram which is over-used in the world of branding to get to the ‘core’ of a brand. He showed us how a quick Google search brings up thousands of them. He demonstrated his adapated ‘post-it note’ method to create just one simple sentence or phrase that sums up every aspect of the branding project.

As testament to his approach, Daren described his involvement in the re-brand of Hutchison Microtel Communications, one of the many emerging mid-90’s mobile phone companies. His method was to simplify the brand down to the word ‘optimism’ in the centre of his post-it note and described their story as ‘looking into the future of telecommunications’. in other words; ‘The future’s bright, the future’s Orange’. This simple story produced one of the leading brands in the mobile phone industry.

Hailo140px

Similarly, when branding a new taxi company, he interpreted their story as ‘Taxi heaven for all’ and ‘Halio’ was born. He showed us how the name and logo are simply an expression of that one concept. Even when selecting colours, it was as straightforward as combining colours of American cabs and English Taxis, black and yellow. He believes that brands needn’t be rocket science and audiences should be immediately able to identify what your company can do for them. He reasons that if you can’t explain your proposed brand strategy to your mum in one easy sentence, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

He did point out that these simplistic approaches will only work if you have built trust with your client. They need to have confidence in you and your decisions.

Discovering more about Daren Cook’s methods towards branding was very insightful and I believe everyone in branding can learn something from the simplicity of his approach.

He finished by applying his storytelling style to conclude the entire talk:

“Stories not logos. Ideas not onions.”

Unfortunately, I don’t think my mum would get the onion part.