Istoria Group is a collective of creative agencies with distinct but complementary skill sets, a fantastic collaborative spirit and the shared ambition to make our clients more visible, more relevant and more compelling to their customers.
Individually, each agency in Istoria Group is a specialist in its respective field. Collectively, we can look after all our clients’ design needs.
Our agencies are:
Ignition designs and produces exceptional exhibitions, events and experiences around the world. Founded in 2007 with offices in Bristol and Indianapolis, Ignition works across industry sectors, including aerospace, pharma, health, renewable energy and education.
Clients include Lilly, Roche, Pilatus, Ovo Energy and Junior Achievement.
Ignition ➞
Phoenix Wharf specialises in creating standout interiors and branding for the hospitality sector, including restaurants, bars, cafes and more.
Clients include Yeo Valley, The Bristol Loaf, The Coconut Tree, The National Trust and Toridoll Group.
Tiny Spark create digital experiences delivering sensory storytelling that delivers significant impact.
Clients include The Royal International Air Tattoo, Pfizer, Self Agency, UWE Bristol and Clue Software.
Istoria Group is dedicated to innovation, entrepreneurship and the local economy. As part of this ethos, we support promising small businesses in their growth and direction.
There’s no competition between our sister agencies, just a shared commitment to deliver our best work. That’s why we call ourselves
The Home of Collective Creativity.
Our business model is modern and entrepreneurial, our spirit is collaborative and we take a personable approach to everything we do. Some of our clients like to work with specialists in a particular discipline, whilst others like to work with a single agency across all their design needs. Our business model allows us to offer both options to clients and lets them decide.
Sam Rowe
Chief Executive Officer
With 20 years’ experience across marketing services, strategy and business management, Sam leads our culture of remarkable standards and is dedicated to maintaining the exceptional customer service that we are proud to be known for.
Lindie Kramers
Chief Marketing Officer
Lindie is an experienced chartered marketer, brand consultant and strategic business developer, with a passion for transformational ideas. Over the past 20 years, Lindie has rebranded retail and hospitality clients across the UK, US and Middle East. Lindie also ensures that each agency in our portfolio remains at the forefront of trends, innovation and best practice.
Helen Mitchell
Chief Strategy Officer
Helen has over 18 years’ experience in client services, having led a number of award-winning accounts including Google, Barbour and UPS. Helen is dedicated to making a difference and looking for strategic and creative solutions to produce great outputs that all can be proud of.
Claire Menzies
Chairwoman & Founder
Claire has 30 years diverse creative and management expertise of industrial design, sustainability, marketing and business strategy. Claire is a visionary leader and her infinite enthusiasm drives our commitment for going above and beyond the call of duty.
Phil Atherton
Director
Phil is a Director at Istoria Group. Phil ensures optimum delivery of live projects to clients. He also assesses team and capability requirements to meet future needs, as well as embedding new growth potential into the business.
Chris Gwyther
Creative Director & Co-Founder Phoenix Wharf
Chris leads and nurtures our talented team of multi-disciplinary designers. A specialist in brand communication, spatial design and creative execution strategy, Chris has over 12 years’ experience working with brands such as The Coca-Cola Company, Unilever, Nestlé, The National Trust and Space NK.
Bryn Isaac
Group Finance Director
Our brand icon creates a home shape, an open book and pencil top to collectively represent Istoria Group’s assets and strapline ‘The Home of Collective Creativity’. It also brings to life the meaning of the word Istoria – the Greek word for ‘story’. We are storytellers.
Being entrepreneurial is a mindset. Entrepreneurs think and act differently. We expect the unexpected and we like to be surprised. For us, to be entrepreneurial means to be able to share ideas freely and fearlessly - even acknowledging so-called failures as learning and growing experiences. We encourage and expect entrepreneurial thinking at all levels of our team and seek to collaborate internally and externally to pinpoint the most exciting new future opportunities.
We believe in being humble. No hierarchies. No egos. No tantrums. In business, we believe that people buy people and we advocate human-to-human communication and values at all times. Our clients always say we’re great to work with and that we go the extra mile. We also care deeply about making the world a better place. Internally, we take great care of our team and invest in finding new team-members that share our beliefs. We’ve been named as one of the UK’s ‘Best Places to Work’.
Thinking comes before doing. Whether it’s the design of a 3D environment, the flawless planning and delivery of an event or the creation of an unforgettable brand experience, we start by cross-fertilising ideas from our different disciplines and personal networks. We balance strategy with creativity and commerciality. The end result is projects of the highest aesthetic quality that function brilliantly and are delivered with exceptional levels of service, measured to ensure expectations are always met or exceeded.
The best source of project knowledge is our clients themselves. We also understand it’s not always easy for clients to articulate exactly what they require from their design partner. We have the tools to discover what is relevant and necessary to know from our clients and we combine this with our own research, knowledge and insights. We share findings and facilitate further brainstorms and that way we always nail the brief. The best minds need to work together towards the same goal.
Our internal awards known as the ‘EPICs’ reward employees who have truly lived and breathed our values.
The EPICs epitomise our values illustrated above. The EPIC awards take place annually to recognise an individual or team’s efforts during the year. The Annual Winner is nominated by employees and the leadership team for the culmination of their work. They are rewarded with the equivalent of a £1,000 prize and a plaque on the EPICs Hall of Fame wall.
An EPIC is the highest honour bestowed on an employee.
