Anna& is a brand and digital design collective based in Leeds, Yorkshire.
Me & ______
I’m Anna Wanczyk, an independent brand director and the Anna part of Anna&. The other part might be you.
I work with clients to get right under the skin of their brand, free-diving for creative insights and bringing them to the surface to inform how the brand presents itself to the world. Too often, the client is missing from the branding process. You can create a pretty brand without much client input, but you end up with something shallow (or, worse, same-y). There’s a lot of shallow out there right now.
That’s why the other part of Anna& is you. No-one understands your business better than you do. No-one feels its texture or depth like you can. That’s why I like to jump in with you, get to know your brand, your values, your points of difference, and figure out how to express it with you…
And the other other parts of Anna& are the specialists I work with. The people who know how to engineer great digital solutions, to bring a brand to life with words, to take it into new dimensions with sound. To do it in a way that’s nimble and bloat-free. I’m a big believer that one size doesn’t fit all – you’re unique, so the team building your brand should be too, and working this way delivers more for your budget than a big agency can offer.
In my 20 years as a designer I’ve worked in-house, for agencies, at agencies (I was head of design at magpie before I went solo) and as an independent, at the head of teams of other independents. I’ve done high-profile branding projects, packaging, design for web, app design, campaigns… all of it, really. But one thing is always consistent: I build and express brands that live, breathe and move in ways that grow directly out of who you are, what you do and how you do it.
Hard Working, Class
I grew up working class. I’m a woman in my 40s. That makes me under-represented in the creative industries twice over. I care a lot about correcting that.
If the pathways into an industry lead through low-paid or unpaid internships (bonus points if they’re in London) then that industry is not welcoming to the working class.
If an industry’s culture is built on late nights, hard drinking and a splash of sleaze, it’s not welcoming to women.
And it’s not just working class people and women who are missing out, it’s the industry – on diverse points of view, on deep-rooted understanding of huge swathes of society, on a more interesting culture.
That’s why, in 2019, Eve Warren and I co-launched the Yorkshire chapter of Kerning the Gap, a network set up by Nat Maher to address the gender imbalance in design leadership.
And that’s why I’ve been showing up for The 93% Club, a network dedicated to supporting state school educated people across the board.
I intend to keep doing my bit on these issues for the rest of my career. Chipping away, making the occasional dent, doing what I can when I can.
And if you stand for something, big or small, that could improve things even just a little bit in this world, then I bet I’d like to work with you. Get in touch.
