Meet Unfound Studio: the agency putting culture ahead of categories — The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design
Unfound builds brands based on what people do rather than which generation they belong to. Newwave™, the tool that the London-based design studio created in-house, grew out of conversations with businesses often using age as their main marketing metric. It blends societal commentary, strategic storytelling, a network of cultural insiders and reports on the challengers about to take their business. The studio started in 2022 as a side hustle between friends and has since grown to take on two of its biggest clients yet, ellesse and The Salad Project. In this conversation, Founder Jay Topham talks us through his stints at big agencies before starting Unfound, why cultural fluency matters more than category fluency, and who the studio is hiring as it grows.
TBI Hi Jay! How are you?
JT Pretty good. We’ve had a busy summer, which often isn’t the case; we’re enjoying some chunky projects and the longer days, so no complaints.
TBI Before Unfound, you had stints at Fitch and Landor in London. What did the big agency world teach you that shapes how you run the studio?
JT Ah man, so much. Those studios are where I really cut my teeth; you’re often surrounded by big thinking and unreal talent, but it’s also where I learnt what was possible. They still inform our process today, but they also meant Unfound thought and acted like a big agency from day one.
TBI How does the status quo of the studio compare to what you thought it would become when you started?
JT The cadence of running the studio operationally is very different to doing the work. As a designer, I’m not sure I really considered what it takes to run a studio, other than just creating great work. Learning how to build a legitimate business has been equally as challenging and exciting as creating meaningful work.
Brands must live in real life, not just on screens.
TBI What does it mean to make sense of culture?
JT It means understanding where a brand, product or business actually shows up in people’s lives. We have this line, brands must live in real life, not just on screens. But practically it means we’re less focused on sexy case study images; instead, we focus on getting closer to the people who actually use the brand, and understanding their behaviours. People will often say one thing and do another (it’s human nature), so we concern ourselves with behaviours more than values.
TBI Where did the name Unfound come from?
JT In the early days, when Unfound was a mere side hustle between friends, we often found that our strategic approach was really impactful for the friends or small businesses that had nothing but an idea. Approaches that were normal practice in big agency-land, but novel and exciting for individuals. There was a feeling that our process articulated and defined what these clients couldn’t; it galvanised us. We were finding the unfound.
By understanding culture, we understand consumers.
TBI Tell us more about Newwave™, your in-house tool for tracking and translating cultural movement into strategic brand decisions.
JT It was born from numerous client conversations where businesses were struggling to keep up, watching new movements unfold without knowing how to connect with the next wave of consumers. Age was often the key metric in their marketing attempts; they fixated on generations to stay relevant, but we came to believe that was a narrow view.
Generational marketing suggests people in one age category act the same – which is just not the case in reality. Maintaining brand relevance and acquiring new customers is not about age; it is about behaviours, interests and context. This is culture.
By understanding culture, we understand consumers. We aren’t talking about how baggy your trousers are; we are talking about the new behaviours adopted by particular groups in society. The cultural economy shapes the way individuals interact with the world around them. Newwave™ is our tool for identifying these behaviours, and it helps us weave these insights into our creative decisions.
Technically, Newwave™ blends societal commentary, a unique network of tastemakers, risk-taking brand reports and strategic storytelling to join the dots between where brands are now and where you want to be. The tastemakers are a handpicked network of cultural insiders, providing live, qualitative intelligence on emerging behaviours. The risk-taking reports are landscape reviews that focus on the brands that are about to steal your lunch money. These are culturally interesting challengers, not just the predictable market leaders, backed up with purchase data as a real behaviour signal. It’s this unique combination of elements that form the Newwave™ tool for the studio.
TBI How does something you spot with Newwave™ turn into a decision on a project?
JT We’ve always seen it as much more than an insight tool, so we don’t stop at the behaviours. We suggest and share creative activations, executions or ideas that are designed to target or emphasise the cultural behaviour we’ve identified. It might be a new product type or a physical activation, but it might also be the basis of an entire identity. It isn’t about chasing trends or reacting to the moment – it’s about uncovering the insights that drive meaningful ideas and innovation for brands.
To land in people’s minds, words must create patterns.
TBI Can you tell us more about The Unfound Way and its three pillars?
JT It’s how we make those cultural insights go further, but it’s also how clients get the best out of us as a team. The Unfound Way is the combination of three practices; cultural insights, design sophistication and brand language. Our work is always rooted in culture, structured through considered design, and articulated with the richness of language. When we unpack all three, our collaborations have a much bigger impact.
We’ve always cared as much about language as we do visuals, with Joey leading that part of the studio. We know that to land in people’s minds, words must create patterns. Without the right language, behavioural insight and design can only do so much. As time has progressed and our practice has developed, The Unfound Way has become a manifestation of the way we think, work and do. These three practices create cohesive brand systems; whether a campaign, website or full brand identity, they ensure every expression works together and earns its place in the world.
TBI You’ve recently landed two of your biggest clients, ellesse and The Salad Project. What does working across those two sectors ask of the team?
JT It asks everything, but that’s what we asked for. Those partners you mentioned also lean into the two sides of our studio, design and production. So they use different teams, but the crossover is what makes them Unfound projects. They are also two of our favourite teams to collaborate with. A lot of what we are trying to do as a service provider is finding bespoke and engaging ways to work with our partners. The guys at ellesse and The Salad Project get culture, and we are co-creating ways to be in it together. We try to avoid it being about them and us.
Interestingly, ellesse is a heritage brand, founded in 1959, and the Salad Project has only been around for five years. Both have moved culture in different ways; our job is to respect that and build on it. Whether it’s re-interrupting that success for a new audience, or holding onto that edge at scale. The sectors are secondary to this; we often talk about putting more emphasis on cultural fluency instead of category fluency, focusing on where the brand actually shows up, rather than the sector they live in. This helps us avoid the conventions of a category.
TBI What roles are important to hire for this next stage of growth for Unfound?
JT The Unfound team are a certain type of person; if I meet someone that fits the bill, I try to hold on to them, regardless of role. But we are a team of doers before anything else, so tenacity is important. We are growing our design team, and will need the right people to support that, account people and creative people. Morwenna joined us last month, as Senior Designer, a real asset.
TBI What would you like Unfound to look like in five years?
JT We want to be doing important work in our own way. We’d like brands to come to Unfound for our take, a culture-first approach and a team that gets it. The work is the point for us, and we seize the back and forth of it all.