Dean Ford

Dean Ford’s journey has taken him from top London agencies working on accounts for high profile and prestigious brands, to running his own studio for nearly 20 years. 

He has worked with some amazing clients, and brings his extensive experience across a variety of business sectors. His philosophy on design is to be not just a creator, but a guardian of the clients’ brand, producing design that engages and inspires its audience with tangible result for the client’s bottom line.

His expertise in branding, design for print, digital and advertising combined with creativity and commitment helps clients achieve their goals through the media.

Brand guru

Expertise

  • Creative direction

  • Branding

  • Graphic design

  • Marketing

  • Advertising

  • Website design

Affiliations

  • British Design & Art Direction

  • The Design Business Association

  • The Institute of Directors

Where Dean works

Soho. It’s London’s playground. A lot has changed around here in the decade since I opened my office, even more since I first visited as a teenager. As a wide-eyed youth we’d go ‘up town’ to see bands play, frequent the pubs and bars on our scene, laugh and blush as we passed the ladies in doorways beckoning us in and ‘not to be shy’.

Over the years I discovered many more interesting clubs, bars and restaurants in the area. From The Borderline to Ronnie Scott’s, grabbing an espresso at Bar Italia, playing gigs at the legendary Gossips and Paloma Faith’s early performances using a chair as her stage in the corner of the tiny Black Gardenia club.

Later I started finding myself having meetings in the area, discovering the more ‘grown up’ venues for meals and late night drinks, becoming a regular at some of the best. I got to know the best deli, the most interesting boutique shops, and places for a good working lunch in the area.

When it came to a location to base my design company, there was no competition. Serendipity found me a place on Dean Street and I haven’t looked back.

Of course the area has changed a lot over the years, much of it for the better, some of it for the worse (I’m looking at you Crossrail). But nowhere else has the vibrancy and eclecticism of Soho. All of life is here.

Hipsters, suits, artists, drag queens, fashion figures, famous faces, business types, creative types, media types, stereotypes, young lovers, old movers, the rich, the poor, tourists and locals, and just about every nationality, skin colour, sexual orientation, young and old...Everyone is welcome.

It's hard not to be inspired here. Work and play sit across the road from each other. The rich history in this, the alternative square mile, is impossible to ignore.

A morning in the office, a lunch meeting at the club, a breather in Soho Square.

Of course this has all been somewhat interrupted of late. Soho’s response to the pandemic has seen street closures enabling al fresco dining, which is great in the summer at least.

Let’s hope the businesses and venues that make this area what it is, can hang on in there as Winter approaches. But then, Soho has always been good at reinventing itself while keeping at its core the things which make this such a unique and inspiring place.