Charlie Smith Design have worked on a multitude of projects for John Lewis Own Brand packaging across our Home and Fashion divisions. The variety and number is in itself a testament to how highly we regard them and their work. Our briefs are not always straightforward but Charlie Smith Design quickly grasps a brief and understands the importance of flushing out detail where there is ambiguity. They spend time thinking the brief through and their initial presentation will often include a structure page which plays back the brief. They generate a lot of work for the first presentation – exploring all the challenges and suggesting a variety of routes for development. We particularly value their flexibility – they are happy to listen to input from stakeholders and to give it appropriate consideration in design development. They aren’t frightened to challenge back if they think input is really off track, nor are they precious about their design if it is really not working: they always endeavour to find a design solution that succeeds and delights. We love working with Charlie Smith Design because they understand us, they understand the challenges we face, they understand our customer and they work very hard to produce beautiful design for every project they are given. They are collaborative, creative, clever and hardworking.

Charlie and her team have worked on every aspect of the brand, from campaigns to signage to hoardings to internal comms. Their work is timeless, elegant and always meaningful. They are also an incredibly professional and lovely team to work with.

The success of our brand and product launch was helped immensely by their graphic design. Charlie Smith Design did the branding, stationary, brochures, packaging, labels, instruction manuals etc. Charlie Smith Design are very professional and delivered on time and within budget. I would recommend them wholeheartedly.

V&A Publishing creates beautiful, innovative and authoritative books on design, fashion, applied art, photography, sculpture and graphics that support the exhibition programme of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Our exhibition catalogue and book schedules often mean extremely tight deadlines, and all the related complexities of multi-author texts, late third party images combined with the challenges of designing substantial amounts of texts with hundreds of images. We’ve worked with Charlie Smith Design on two such projects recently, and we were delighted with their enthusiasm and ‘can-do’ attitude on even the most tricky project. The team is quick to respond to feedback and handle changes efficiently and promptly, meaning that no time was lost at the editor’s end. They have a collaborative approach to projects, understanding the limitations of tight budgets, but can work creatively within those constraints, and were very responsive to any changes required. Most importantly, they worked very hard to ensure that every deadline was met, and they did so cheerfully and without complaint, despite the pressures at the end of the project. I have no hesitation in recommending the calibre and excellence of their work.

Charlie Smith and her team are true partners to us. They are an absolute asset to our business and have helped us evolve and stretch as a brand. They have gotten under the skin of who we are and who our customers are and the work shows this as it flexes and adapts to different briefs and our different environments. Charlie has created an ever-growing toolkit for us that we are all proud of. In the big picture they bring us beautiful brand definition and identity. In the day-to-day, they are responsive, totally reliable and highly professional with big and small briefs. The team is great at keeping us all in line from a creative perspective right down to budget management. If it’s not yet gushingly obvious, we highly recommend Charlie and her team!