Elmwood launches in Far East as Bright collaboration forms in Edinburgh
Elmwood launches in Far East as Bright collaboration forms inElmwood has extended its global footprint, opening its first Southeast Asian office in Singapore this week.
The new office adds to its global spread through Leeds, London, Melbourne, New York and Edinburgh.
The brand design consultancy has appointed Dominic Mason as managing director of the Singapore office, which will act as a hub to service clients across the Southeast Asia region. Dominic who has twenty years experience in SE Asia, was formerly head of strategy and innovation at Futurebrand Singapore before setting up his own consultancy.
Joe Rogers, Vice President Asia, stated: "We open our doors this week with immediate projects which is a great place to start. Singapore is an important hub with a number of our global clients having their Asian HQ’s in the country.
"With the pound being such a weak currency at the moment it is a great time for Elmwood to be expanding it’s global footprint. We would like to be able to open an office in Hong Kong as well this year to help us with a number of opportunities we have in Mainland China.
"Given that we are expanding against the backdrop of a global downturn these are exciting times albeit a little frightening at times too! However with Dominic’s appointment we have gained a leader and strategic thinker with an outstanding local pedigree who will help us make the most of the current and future client opportunities."
Jonathan Sands, cChairman, of Elmwood, added: “The opening of Singapore is one of a number of global office openings in the pipeline. We now have three offices in the US and are just starting to look at San Francisco as well. I also hope that next year might see us open in Switzerland.”
Meanwhile, Elmwood is collaborating with Bright 3D the Edinburgh-based retail design consultancy. The two consultancies are working together on a number of projects in the Middle East and Elmwood is moving out of its Thistle Street building and has taken space inside Bright 3D’s studio in Leith.
"This is a great move for us as we have worked with Bright 3D for some time and sharing their space means that we can maintain our Scottish connections and at the same time utilise the cash we have tied up in our Edinburgh building to help fund our expansion," said Sands. "This includes a number of potential acquisitions the first of which is going through the final stages of due diligence."
Elmwood is a multi-disciplinary brand design consultancy with offices in Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Melbourne, New York
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nice shirt though
This isn't a comment about Elmwood, but in general I'm always a little suspicious of these "We now have offices in New York, Hong Kong, Auckland, Moscow, Cape Town, Hogwarts, Pluto etc" grand announcements about being a big global player.
The image projected is a network of dozens of thriving design studios across the globe.
But more often than not, the glamorous location is actually just one person acting as a sales rep looking out for possible new business leads. They probably do similar work for several companies, and THEIR ultimate business is getting business like this from agencies – 'we can be your agent in this exciting emerging market' etc etc.
Happy to be proved wrong in this case, if Elmwood really do have a studio of 20 or so designers hard at work in Singapore, but in general these announcements need taking with a large dose of salt.
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