Tito Clark, a business management degree student at City College Norwich, has launched a new branding agency with a distinctive mission: to help launch the professional careers of design students and recent graduates.
Mr Clark set up his Brand 21 agency after learning from friends that graphic design graduates were often finding it hard to break into the industry for which they have trained.
The agency employs talented young graphic designers on a freelance basis, providing graphic design for everything from company logos, to business cards, flyers, T-shirts, menus and other printed materials. Brand 21 also offers branding services, web design and marketing consultancy.
As well as looking to make Brand 21 successful as a business, Mr Clark says that there is a strong element of social enterprise running through his company:
“From talking to my graphic design friends I could see that there was an issue of students and recent graduate designers needing experience and projects to show on their CV. The idea of setting up a businesses that could really help with that appealed to me.”
The journey to setting up Brand 21 originated during the first year of Mr Clark’s BA (hons) Business Management degree course, in which students had to complete a project related to starting up a new business.
This inspired Mr Clark to go further and during the summer holidays he began working on setting up his own business for real. The 20 year old from Norwich recalls: “I just really enjoyed the process of starting up a new business” and Brand 21 quickly took shape.
Mr Clark, who is now in the second year of his degree, has gone on to devote a lot of time and energy outside of his studies to developing the business. To date Brand 21 has secured work for three current design students and two graduates, undertaken for a wide variety of clients.
Mr Clark has developed Brand 21 with support from the StartUp Lounge at City College Norwich, which provides advice and support to students wishing to set up their own businesses as well as opportunities to network and learn from local businesspeople.
Tito Clark, Managing Director, Brand 21, commented: “I am really enjoying the process of starting a business and seeing it grow. Brand 21’s designers are highly motivated to establish their reputations and build up their portfolios, so we are able to offer clients an excellent and very competitive service. The aim now is to grow our client base and in the process support our designers to progress in their careers.”
For more information about Brand 21 visit https://www.brand21agency.co.uk/ or email [email protected]