This year marks a momentous milestone for our team here at PHd Design, as we celebrate 30 years of award-winning designs.
But how did we get to where we are today?

It All Started With a Pencil…

Our managing director Peter Howard, founded PHd Design back in 1992, with the vision of creating a design legacy. The
original office was based in the spare room of his parent’s house, and with limited resources, Peter went to work building up his
fledgling business.

These were the days before designers had the digital array of tools that make the design process as streamlined as
it is today. So each design was painstakingly hand-drawn at each stage of the design process.

The Digital Renaissance

As digital tools and technology became more readily available, PHd Design purchased their first company Macintosh
computer and began to move into digital design.

Demand for design work was so high, that the business quickly moved from Peter being a ‘one-man band’
as the company took on its first employee to keep up with the ever-increasing project list.

Innovation in Design

It’s safe to say that we’ve never shied away from taking giant leaps in the name of creativity and to help really deliver the
‘wow’ factor to our projects. Back in 1999, Aston Manor Brewery – the UK’s largest independent cider company came to us
with a design brief for the packaging of their newest product ‘Blackadder’. The design was for a snake to be curling around the
bottle from top to bottom, printed on a shrink sleeve.

So our team took on the challenge, building ‘pre-distortion’ into the design so that when the print was shrunken onto the bottle, the
design would still look fully proportional and true to the brand. This practice is common now, but at the time, PHd Design was the first
design company in the UK to design a 330ml drink package in this way.

And the following year, we won our first major design award from a big player in the industry; Design Week.

To the Barn

As the business continued to grow, it became clear that a larger and more professional creative space was needed. And
so the move to a studio space in Lichfield was made. This location was a perfect fit, as the studio is nestled in the
peaceful town of Riley Hill, making it easily accessible to Birmingham and the wider Midlands area.

The move really helped our creative team to continue to thrive, and over the next few years, we continued to dazzle
our clients and win numerous awards for our designs and creativity.

Award-Winning Agency

We enjoyed many milestones in the years that followed, from working with our 1,000th client to completing our 10,000th
project. But our proudest achievement was being ranked in the ‘Top 100 Creative Agencies’ in the UK. With just
over 125,000 design companies in the UK, to be ranked in the top 100 – essentially making us one of the top 0.1%
was a huge honour for our small graphic design agency based in Lichfield.

We’re also the only agency in Staffordshire to have made the list.

From these humble beginnings came the thriving agency we know and love today. It’s exciting to see how far we’ve come,
and we can’t wait to see what the next 10 years will bring for our team and our clients.