1 / 12

Brands that hesitate to stand for something stand for nothing.

GROUNDWORK

Who we are

Founded in Amsterdam, 2015

42 people across Amsterdam and New York

Strategy, design, and delivery for brands that want to matter

Brand Strategy

Positioning, voice, and go-to-market clarity

Experience Design

Digital products built for real human behavior

Content Systems

Scalable, brand-safe publishing architectures

Brand Strategy

Audience Intelligence

Deep ethnographic research to understand who you're really talking to and what they actually need

Positioning Architecture

The strategic frame that differentiates you in a crowded category with clarity and conviction

Brand Voice & Tonality

A living language system that scales across every touchpoint without sounding corporate

Launch Readiness

Go-to-market planning that coordinates message, channel, and creative for maximum impact

Experience Design

Research
User interviews & journey mapping
Concept
Strategic design direction
Prototype
Built with HeliOS
Test
Validated with Sightline
Ship
Handoff via Layerstack

HeliOS

Rapid-prototyping framework for testing interaction patterns

Sightline

Remote user testing with real-time behavioral analytics

Layerstack

Design-to-dev handoff with zero ambiguity

Ad-hoc content

  • → Inconsistent visual language
  • → Slow production timelines
  • → Brand safety risks at scale
  • → Every asset a one-off

Groundwork content systems

  • → Modular component library
  • → Template-driven workflows
  • → Brand-locked by design
  • → Scalable across channels
3x

faster time-to-publish for Valora Foods after system build

CASE STUDY 01

Valora Foods Rebrand

THE BRIEF

Reposition a legacy B2B ingredient brand for direct-to-consumer markets

The Challenge

30 years of brand equity locked in trade-facing assets that felt industrial and ingredient-focused — not consumer-ready

The Solution

New visual identity, modular packaging system, and DTC e-commerce site designed to carry premium positioning

+22pts

Aided brand awareness

+$4.1M

DTC revenue in 12 months

"Groundwork gave us a brand we're finally proud to put on shelves."
Leila Ahadi
Chief Marketing Officer, Valora Foods
+22pts
Awareness
+$4.1M
Revenue
3x
Content speed
CASE STUDY 02

Reedham Bank Digital Experience

18-week UX overhaul — from brief to launch

Discovery
3 weeks
User research & journey audit
Strategy
2 weeks
Experience principles & IA
Design Sprint
6 weeks
Full UI design system
Prototype & Test
4 weeks
HeliOS build + Sightline testing
Launch
3 weeks
Layerstack handoff & QA
+48%

Digital account-opening completion rate for Reedham Bank after UX overhaul

-31%

Drop-off rate reduction

44 → 67

Mobile NPS improvement

The team

Sarah Novak

Brand Strategist

Previously at Wolff Olins

Marcus Chen

Experience Designer

Previously at IDEO

Anika Patel

Brand Strategist

Previously at Pentagram

Jordan Ellis

Experience Designer

Previously at Instrument

Priya Deshmukh

Content Lead

Previously at Huge

Yusuf Mensah

Engagement Director

Previously at R/GA

How we work

Embedded, not arms-length

We integrate with your team — Slack, standups, working sessions. You're not waiting for a deck at the end of a black box.

Sprint-based, not waterfall

We ship work every two weeks. You see progress, give feedback, and course-correct in real time instead of month three.

Tools-agnostic

We adapt to your stack — Figma, Notion, Jira, whatever you already use. No forcing you into our process.

Plain language, no jargon

We write recommendations you can present to your board without translation. Clarity is a service, not a nice-to-have.

A 2-week strategic sprint, fixed at £18,000

What it covers: positioning audit, audience framing, one creative hypothesis tested with users

No obligations beyond the sprint. No multi-month commitments. Just two focused weeks to pressure-test one brand or experience challenge with our full methodology.

If it works, we build the roadmap together. If it doesn't, you've invested two weeks, not six months.

Contact

Yusuf Mensah, Engagement Director

yusuf@groundwork.studio