Turning Points: Digital design studio Sennep

Sennep is a London-based digital design studio whose clients include Sky, Google Hong Kong, McKinsey and Unicef. It was founded in 2003 by Matt Rice and Hege Aaby, who tell us how side projects, an unexpected client win, and Elton John shaped their studio.

1. When they founded Sennep, the founders committed to doing a passion project every year. They’ve kept that promise for 21 years, making everything from museum pieces to mobile games.

These projects have been pivotal. They’ve let us experiment, learn, and grow in ways we never expected. They are more than just side gigs – they’re at the heart of who we are.

Deciding what to work on is pretty organic. If something strikes, and we have enough enthusiasm for it, we just do it. And sometimes we want to learn a new technology. Our mobile game OLO was born from a need to get an app in our portfolio, to show clients we could do that. Or when the Apple Watch came out, we did an interface for Bus O’Clock.

Some projects were quick creative experiments, while others, like the Dandelion – an interactive art piece that’s been exhibited at the V&A and other museums around the world – turned into something much bigger. Both OLO and Alphaputt were promoted as the editor’s choice on the App Store, leading to new business opportunities and Matt hosting a creative game-making workshop at the Apple Store on Regent Street.

2. As the studio grew and pressure on the founders ramped up, Sennep brought in new partners to add different strengths to the leadership team.

Starting a small design studio with your life partner, like we did, can come with its challenges – like going on holiday together. Back when it was just the two of us, things came to a halt whenever we took time off.

We quickly realised we needed someone we trusted to keep things running when we were away. Our talented friend and ex-colleague Stuart Jackson was job-hunting at that time. It felt like the stars aligned, and we brought him on board as a partner.

A few years later our lead programmer, Christoph Lorenzi, dropped the bombshell that he was looking for a new job. We were devastated and couldn’t imagine the studio without him, so we took a leap and asked if he’d consider staying if he was made a partner. Thankfully, he said yes.

Bringing in partners with different skills and perspectives has been one of the best decisions we’ve made, as it helped the studio grow in size and confidence. Our default as doers is, “Let’s design our way out of this!”, but sometimes we don’t need to design, and we need someone to point that out.

3. In 2010, Sennep was asked to pitch on a job for McKinsey. It led to a 12-year working relationship which put the studio on a new financial footing.

When Stu took the call, they were asking how big we were globally, and where the offices are. When we said it was just 12 of us in Shoreditch, we thought that was the end of it, but they invited us to pitch.

We put in the biggest proposal we’d ever put together – it was really chunky. When they came in, they said thanks for keeping it so light and simple. We realised, wow, this is a different level.

Our main focus was on unifying the interface design and user experience across their wide range of business analytics tools. But one of the standout projects was an app we developed called Urban World – an interactive visualisation showcasing the economic power of cities, from the past into the future.

It was a steep learning curve because McKinsey is trying to solve complex problems, for very big organisations and even whole countries.

Our relationship with them provided the financial stability we needed to plan for the future and grow. Before that, everything had been quite hand to mouth but we got into a very trusting and transparent relationship.

4. Working on Elton John’s website led to a new appreciation of data and measuring the impact of their work.

In the early days, success was more about how creative our work was than how well it actually performed. Data wasn’t really a big factor in measuring outcomes, which was pretty common back then.

But when we got the opportunity to design Elton John’s website, things shifted. The marketing team gave us specific KPIs to aim for – reaching a younger audience, improving subscriber data, increasing engagement on the site.

To track our progress, we set up clear metrics, and since then, we’ve fully embraced a data-driven approach. We used to jump straight into the design, but now we take time up front to be thorough in gathering data to create benchmarks. People trust numbers and design can be very – “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” Hard numbers build trust.

5. In 2017, Sennep made the dream move to a huge riverside studio. In February 2020, they signed a new long-term lease, weeks before Covid hit…

Growing out of our Whitechapel office and moving to a much bigger space in Wapping felt like a major step up.

It was right by the Thames in a beautiful, listed Victorian factory with a chic foyer. It really boosted the team’s spirits and we were so proud to invite clients over for meetings. The building gave us a sense of confidence and felt like a symbol of everything we had achieved.

Then COVID hit, and our beloved office, once bustling with energy, became an expensive, empty space with a very long lease. Dreams don’t always last forever.

We had a mourning period, because so many things changed so dramatically. But we’ve changed the way we work, and we’re going back to being more experimental and trying new things again. When you start out you’re very open and now we are back to reinventing ourselves. It’s scary, and exciting, and we feel this fresh wave of creative energy.