Plum KeelIndependent brand & digital studio

Taking on new briefs this season

Plum KeelBrand & digital agency
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Strategy ♦ Identity ♦ Digital

Brands with a keel hold their course.

Plum Keel is a compact crew of strategists, designers and developers. We give ambitious organisations a clear position, a distinctive identity and digital work that stays upright when markets get choppy.

Start a brief See recent work
A small team gathered around a table with laptops, working through a project together
  • 01Position

    Say one true thing about your organisation, then say it well.

  • 02Express

    Identity systems that flex across every channel without drifting.

  • 03Launch

    Websites and campaigns built, tested and handed over properly.

What we make

Four disciplines, one steady crew.

Hire us for a single piece or the whole voyage. The same people carry the thinking from first workshop to final file, so nothing gets lost in translation.

01

Brand strategy

Research, positioning and messaging that give your team a shared compass and your audience a reason to care.

  • Positioning
  • Naming
  • Messaging

02

Identity systems

Logos, type, colour and rules designed as a working system, not a one-off mark, with guidelines your team will actually use.

  • Logo
  • Typography
  • Guidelines

03

Websites & digital

Fast, accessible websites and product interfaces, designed and built in-house and handed over with clear documentation.

  • UX
  • Web build
  • Accessibility

04

Campaign & content

Launch campaigns, editorial and social toolkits that put the new brand to work in the places your audience already looks.

  • Launch
  • Editorial
  • Toolkits

Recent chapters

Work that changed direction, not just colour.

A few illustrative projects showing how we frame a problem and where the craft goes.

Bright open-plan studio with long desks, plants and tall windows
Strategy · Identity · Website

Saltmarsh Provisions: from farm-gate stall to a pantry brand people seek out.

A family food producer had outgrown hand-drawn labels but feared losing its warmth. We found the story in their slow methods and built an identity around it.

The system stretches from jar labels to a calm, story-led website.

  • Positioning workshops with the founding family
  • Packaging system across a growing range
  • Editorial website with recipe and origin stories
Colleagues in a meeting room reviewing ideas on a whiteboard
Website · Content design

Northlight Clinics: a website that answers the question before the call.

We restructured a sprawling site around patient questions, rewrote key journeys in plain language and built an accessible, easy-to-edit front end.

Wall covered in colourful sticky notes mapping out a customer journey
Campaign · Toolkit

Tidewater Cycle Co.: a launch campaign the local team could keep running.

A modular campaign kit of headlines, photography direction and templates meant the in-house team could keep the launch fresh long after we stepped back.

How we steer

A clear course, charted together.

Every engagement follows the same four waypoints. You always know where we are, what is next and what we need from you.

  1. 01Chart

    Listen and map

    Stakeholder conversations, audience research and an honest audit set the heading before anything is designed.

  2. 02Draft

    Explore routes

    We share a small number of distinct directions, explain the thinking behind each and shape one with you.

  3. 03Build

    Craft the system

    The chosen route becomes real: identity files, pages, components and content, reviewed at agreed checkpoints.

  4. 04Steer

    Launch and hand over

    We launch alongside your team, train the people who will look after the work and stay close while it beds in.

Ways to start

Pick the vessel that fits the voyage.

Not sure which suits you? Describe the challenge in the brief form and we will recommend a starting point.

Focused

Sprint

A short, intensive burst to solve one sharp problem, such as a positioning reset, a naming project or a landing page.

  • One defined outcome
  • Workshop-led kick-off
  • Ready-to-use deliverables
Ask about a sprint

Most complete

Programme

End-to-end brand and digital work, from strategy through identity to a launched website, with one crew the whole way.

  • Strategy, identity and web
  • Fortnightly checkpoints
  • Launch support and training
Plan a programme

Ongoing

Crew

A reserved slice of our team each month to evolve your brand, run campaigns and keep your website improving.

  • Rolling monthly priorities
  • Named senior lead
  • Flexible across disciplines
Discuss a crew

Before you write

Questions we often hear.

Anything else, just ask in your brief.

Is my project too small for an agency?

Probably not. Our Sprint format exists for focused problems, and many long relationships started with a single, well-defined piece of work.

Can you work alongside our in-house team?

Yes. We regularly collaborate with internal marketers, designers and developers, and we plan hand-over from day one so your team owns the result.

What should I prepare before we talk?

A rough sense of the challenge, your timing and who makes decisions is plenty. We will help shape the rest in a first conversation.

Who owns the finished work?

You do. On final payment, all agreed deliverables and source files are handed over for your organisation to use freely.

Send a brief

Tell us where you are headed.

A few lines are enough. We read every brief carefully and reply with honest thoughts on fit and a suggested next step.

  1. 01We review your brief and reply within two working days.
  2. 02A short call to understand goals, timing and constraints.
  3. 03A written proposal with scope, approach and schedule.

Project brief

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