Why? Small word, big question

When we asked ourselves why we should leave the shelter of our reliable, salaried positions & strike out into the scary world of ‘going it alone’ the answer felt pretty simple at first. Freedom. No more business bullsh*t, agency double-speak or office politics. Just meaningful, inspiring creative work delivered straight to the door of meaningful & inspiring brands. Human to human. Simple.

We quickly realised there was much more to it, a deeper desire for a bigger change in how we work and who we work for. An epiphany of sorts, and not a pleasant one: we’ve spent 15 years being part of the problem.

We love the creative challenge of our work. We chose careers where we could turn up in jeans & a t-shirt, listen to anti-social music in the studio, and exercise our creative personalities. The best part is that we got paid for it too. The dream.

But it came with a compromise. More often than not, our skills were used to convince people to buy things that they don’t really need. Things that pollute, damage and deplete the planet. Sustaining business practices and supply chains that gave little or no thought for the lives that they touched.

xforwhy is our opportunity to forge a different path, and do better things for better people.

Our values are at the heart of everything we do

We are committed to working with individuals, brands, businesses and charities who understand their place in the world. Who care for their people, their supply chains, their customers and their footprint. Those who offer a substitute to the mass-produced. We believe real change happens from the ground up, and we’re looking for clients, brands and partners who feel the same. To coin a slightly cheesy phrase, we’ve chosen to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. To that end, we partner with the companies & organisations below to do our bit.

If you’d like to read our Purpose Statement, you can find it here.

Image courtesy of Care4Calais

Refugee Work

We are appalled at the UK government's position on the refugee crisis. We believe it is important that those who oppose their stance and value humanity and empathy take action.

We partner with two charities working on the ground delivering essential aid and support to refugees living in the worst conditions across Northern France and Belgium, as well as once they arrive in the UK.

For each month that xforwhy has been in business, we buy a smartphone for a refugee through Care4Calais. The UK government confiscates refugees phones as soon as they arrive in the country, a practice that we believe is inhumane and isolating. So we want to help them access information, services and crucially keep them in contact with family and friends. So far, we have purchased 21 smartphones for refugees through Care4Calais.

RefYouMe is an action group organising volunteer trips for local communities in the UK. We volunteer our time pro bono for this amazing organisation. We also raised nearly £1,000 through selling our 'Can't' Poster, which enabled one of their partners, Roots, to build three hot showers in Calais for refugees.

You can find out more, or get involved, via the links below.

Image courtesy of Surfers Against Sewage

SAS Ocean Network

We're lucky enough to live with the ocean on our doorstep. We get to enjoy it every day and are passionate advocates of ocean conservation. And although we're not surfers (yet), we're either in it swimming, on it on our paddle boards, or walking alongside it with the dog.

As such, we are members of the Surfers Against Sewage Ocean Network and are pleased to support their work as Ocean Activists.

Surfers Against Sewage believe that for people to thrive and live life to the fullest, the ocean must thrive too. And so we need to confront all that threatens it - water quality, plastic pollution, ocean recovery and the climate emergency.

Click the link below to learn more and support SAS.

Image courtesy of Nicholas Doherty on Unsplash

Our Footprint

We officially recognise the Climate Emergency.

As business-owners and individuals, we're committed to constantly reducing the impact we have on the planet. Despite our efforts it seems a carbon footprint, no matter how small, is unavoidable. As such, since our inception, we have operated at better than net-zero by offsetting our carbon.

We know that carbon offsetting isn’t the panacea the world needs, and we are always trying to reduce our carbon footprint further. But for those things we can’t remove from our lives, we offset our annual carbon footprint via the United Nations Carbon Neutral Now offset programme. We always offset by donating to wind turbine projects, as we consider these to be the most environmentally friendly offset projects.

We calculate our annual household / business carbon footprint and always offset more than we produce.

Work with us.

We love meeting new people. Feel free to drop us a line to say hi, talk about your project and find out how we can help you build your business.