A Chat with Michelle Noel, Founder at Branding and Design Agency: Studio Noel

Tell us about Studio Noel

We’re a female-founded branding and design agency based in London. We have a strong focus on branding that is underpinned by solid strategy and an understanding of the people who make the business.

We are driven by making a positive impact on the world and choose to work with brands and businesses that align with our values. A strong focus for us is how to make brands more accessible to people with access needs and disabilities.

Approximately 24% of the UK population have a disability, yet many brands do not have assets geared up for creating accessible content or websites. Consequently, brands that don’t prioritise accessibility are excluding potentially a quarter of the population and we want to change that.

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

I grew up with my dad running his own business and always liked the idea of starting my own. I started my career working at an independent business, then went into full time positions in London, before freelancing at different agencies for around five years. This variety worked well for me as I got to understand how different people and businesses work and cherry picked the best bits to form my own company.

Throughout my career I always encountered a lack of training and development opportunities within organisations so I wanted to create a company which enabled progress and had regular training to ensure people can progress and grow their skill set, as growth and development is what keeps people motivated with their careers.

What is your advice to aspiring entrepreneurs?

Don’t underestimate the power of learning at any point in your career. I read lots, especially books that are outside of my industry; you can very quickly learn from other people’s experiences and their mistakes so you don’t make them.

Establishing systems and processes in the business from inception would have been incredibly useful. At the time it felt like it wasn’t necessary as it was just me, but now that we have them in place it’s allowed us to scale our team more quickly – I wish I’d done it sooner!

What most excites you about Studio Noel?

The team – they’re fantastic and it is always exciting to see people grow into new roles or their sense of achievement from presenting their work to a client or having a win with a project.

How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?

It’s been a challenging few years involving life circumstances and an undercurrent of industry turbulence. Personally, I became a mum so I had to adapt running the business to work with my new family life, which made me realise I can’t do everything I used to. This resulted in a positive outcome however, as we scaled the team to more than double its size, and my role is more manageable.

Tactically, we’ve placed a stronger focus on our strategy and branding services to help businesses accelerate their growth and communicate their vision. We completed some fantastic client projects over the last couple of years which led us to work with the Natural History Museum, Centrepoint and Imperial College London.

What can we hope to see from Studio Noel in the future?

A continued focus on creating impactful and memorable brands that are also accessible and training internal teams how to maintain and embed accessible principals into their brand. We’ll also be helping more brands to accelerate their business growth. In terms of the team, we’re looking to expand our accounts personnel to continually improve our service for clients.