While 2022 was transformational in many ways, 2023 felt like an open highway with a long new road ahead of us. We have entered a new phase of moving ahead with our strategy, operations and brand. This was the year of the "Quality Shift," where we not only made significant improvements but also delved deep into defining what quality truly means for our team.

Setting the pace from day one

Our year kicked off with a burst of energy and optimism. We’ve landed an exciting new project on the last working day of 2022- a branding and web design request for EVesto a pioneer in the EV sector.

January welcomed two new designers, Sara and Amrish, while Matthias from Belgium stepped into the internship role, bringing a fresh wave of talent. Carmen also joined our marketing department, infusing the office with positive vibes. While working on the projects and onboarding the new team members we began implementing an ambitious update of our own brand.

The quality shift

Having meticulously crafted a long-term strategy throughout 2022, 2023 was the year to put it into action. But not before doing some team building first, because as we believe, it takes big (excellent) people to create healthy, sustainable, and thriving businesses. 

In April, we organised a grand team outing together with Voorwaarts, during which we engaged in a conversation about how we work together. We did not one, but 2 escape rooms at a cool location inside the Arminus church in Rotterdam. Then, we took a waterbus to Dordrecht, where we had a lovely dinner at Villa Augustus.

June saw a delightful team barbecue at Euromast park, solidifying our bonds and creating lasting memories. 

Operationally we focused a lot of attention on establishing clear Standard Operating procedures (SOPs). Reflecting on past projects, we distilled lessons to enhance client service, culminating in the reorganisation of our services into three pillars: Branding, Digital, and Marketing.

Creating a brand concept: Embracing the Wild

Simultaneously, rethinking our brand, we created a concept, ‘Embracing the Wild’. A lot of it was already in the name ‘Wild Digital’ but we went deeper, contemplating what makes us wild and how that translates to our work and clients.

Next to that, we updated our brand identity, delivery of which is currently still being phased out because, well… it’s a process! And because we tend to put client work first. Nevertheless, 6 intense months of work culminated in the birth of a new Wild Digital brand, giving us a quality firmament that feels solid and reliable for the year to come. 

Brand maturity scan

In the realm of marketing, we’ve started thinking about what would be a good way to provide more value to our prospects and clients. Let’s be honest: it takes time to build a brand. Besides, what we concluded while working on the Wild Digital brand concept was that NOT every brand has the potential to become iconic or even leading. But for those aspiring to go big we sought to provide a tool that would guide building a strong brand. 

After a couple of brainstorming sessions, we’ve decided to develop a brand maturity scan. We’ve poured all our knowledge and expertise into this tool, and it took us half a year to develop it. You can read how to measure the brand maturity and the accuracy of the brand maturity scan results if you are interested to know more.

Website update

A huge part of work that we’ve done to build our own brand came to fruition in October when we gave our website a major update. The most significant change was in the website copy and images. The structure of the pages has been updated as well. Next, we added several new cases and insight articles to upgrade our content. Yet, there’s more to come, so stay tuned. 

Baby news

Every month, we have a special lunch called ‘All hands on deck’, during which William, our founder/creative director, shares important company updates with the team. It’s a lot of fun, because he prepares an icebreaker question for the team, so we also share some personal stories and anecdotes. 

Well, in October, we were in for a big surprise when at the end of the ‘All hands’ meeting, Will said: “I have one final thing to add- we’ll have a new team member at Wild”, and then he put the ecography pictures of the baby on the screen… Our jaws dropped, followed by the joyous screams and hugs. The baby is expected in May 2024.

Adapting to technological shifts

AI and innovation in technology are changing the way we work. We’ve adopted AI as an assistant for copywriting and generating/improving images and it’s mind-blowing what AI is capable of!

We’ve started noticing more opportunities in developing websites on platforms like Shopify and Framer compared to the good old WordPress. The main reason is that WordPress seems not to have innovated as much as those mentioned platforms did. We’re curious to see what the next year brings. 

Projects that defined our year

Working with 20 clients on strategy, branding, design, and development led to impactful projects. As we were slowly adopting a more sustainable course, we want to highlight our top 5 projects from last year.

EVesto needed a brand identity and website to bring their unique Charge Point Operator (CPO) platform to the market. EVesto believes that any business can become a CPO to generate additional revenue streams while helping the global mission to advance the clean energy transition.

MCB Milieutechniek were in an evolution to modernize their brand and wanted to shine during a number of important industry events. We helped them update their brand identity and designed essential brand assets like presentation templates and event banners to elevate their presence.

&flux are our neighbours at HIG and we’re very pleased with our collaboration. Their mission is to make The Netherlands resilient and sustainable while helping governments and companies with various transitions happening at the same time. We helped &flux with a brand concept and a marketing strategy.

Future First has an inspiring mission to create a marketplace for sustainable consumption. They reached out to us for some help with setting up this new platform from scratch. We have kicked off the project with a digital strategy workshop and together created a roadmap for next year.

van Dijken Glas came to us with a request for a new website. This incredibly innovative Dutch company is a worldwide leader in glass processing and design. They've worked with several amazing clients and designers on incredible projects, so it is our honour to work with them on a website. The first version was launched in the shortest time before the Design Miami fair.

Looking ahead

In 2024, we will continue our quality shift. As mentioned earlier, quality takes time. We aim to define the principles of ‘Working together’ and establish quality standards for our design process. The next phase of rolling out our new brand is also on the agenda.