From miner to major

One day a farmer was ploughing one of his fields on the farthest boundaries of his land. That day had been like all the others that had gone past that year. A bit of a slog, dealing with the day-to-day issues of running his land for the landowner, who frankly had no appreciation of the hours and effort that went into the complexities that he faced every day.

As he ploughed, the earth appeared to be unusually dark. He jumped down from his tractor, grabbed a shovel from the cab and started digging. After only a few hefty efforts he started to lift what looked like coal. He widened his effort, digging in different areas in the field only to find more of the same thing. Back in his house later that evening he mulled over his day wondering if there was a something in this find. After a few weeks he started digging every day, and began selling his coal to the locals.

It wasn’t long before he realised he needed help. He knew of a chap that was also a farmer struggling with his land, so invited him to join forces and help with the digging. So there they were. Out in the wild, digging every day, selling more and more coal. Soon they needed help to run the business, more miners, then in time investment in the site equipment.

As the business grew, the landowner was making more and more money from their efforts. So they invested and bought the land off them, and set up in earnest. Employing new people to look at different ways of using the land, planning strategically how they could diversify in energy creation, an area they now understood well, whilst still digging the coal that was underpinning the business.

As we look at the design industry and how it has changed, like so many over the decades, we see that creativity in all its diverse expression is still the staple of any design business. And as the miners are still digging up the coal around them, the wind turbines are being put up and the river running through their fields has been used to deliver energy.

Six has gone from miners of coal, a business steeped in the industry of the creative, to a full-blown energy company which powers our clients’ brands with strategy, technology and design. Our creativity is supported by amazing insight into clients’ and customers’ challenges. Our ideas are more targeted and more efficient than ever, and we are able to deploy the broad might of the agency, to bring all the truth of our clients’ stories to light, harnessing new technologies and products.

From a team of miners, we’ve grown into a major source of creativity for our clients’ brands and a place where people love to work.