Building a brand from the inside is different from advising on one. You're carrying the product, the sales, the team, the cashflow, and the broader brand thinking can get left behind. It can be hard to see the wood for the trees.
That's where I come in. Not as a consultant with a framework. As someone who sits alongside you, asks the questions that are hard to ask yourself, and helps get to the one true idea the whole brand hangs on, then sets it to work.
I've co-founded brands, run teams, sat in investor rooms, been behind the stand at the shows. I know what the decisions actually feel like.
30 years in every room. Trained at the School of Communication Arts, then London agencies with blue chip clients, freelancing, the client side at Colibri, co-founding hlthpunk across two continents on a shoestring, and creating Ethel, a studio for sustainable and ethical brands. Not in theory. In practice.
I trained at the School of Communication Arts, then spent my early career in a London brand and packaging agency working across blue chip clients. That world taught me something I've carried into everything since, that the best ideas create an emotional link to the rational. How every element of a brand, seen, heard, or felt, can work together to hold one true idea.
Freelancing came next, including time at What If!?, an innovation agency working with major brands. Then Colibri Inc. For the first time I was on the client side, running teams, talking to investors, managing an international business across multiple continents. Great design means nothing if it doesn't work on the warehouse floor.
Then came hlthpunk, a founder with skin in the game. Our own money. Or lack of it. Every penny counts when it's yours. Every decision carries more weight. Brexit ended it, the margins became impossible. But the brand did exactly what a brand should do.
Ethel came out of a simple belief, that smaller, more purposeful brands deserved the same quality of thinking as the big ones, without the fancy offices and posh biscuits. Co-founded with an ex-Saatchi creative director, working with brands we actually believed in.
After 30 years of being in every room, the agency, the client side, the founder's side, I've learned that the thinking is often the most valuable thing.
Steven and Janett had the name, the product, and an unwavering belief in what they were building. Our first conversation happened in a Wholefoods, which felt entirely right. Together, everything took shape: identity, packaging, positioning, and a line that captured something true. Love Your Gut, because it's chocolate, and because your gut is transformed by every mouthful. A brand built on genuine product truth. Biomel has since secured £5m investment.
"Laurence has been part of our journey for years, truly an extension of the team. His passion, commitment and ability to meet every challenge have shaped a strong, lasting relationship. Thank you, Laurence!"
Co-Founder and COO, BiomelCo-founded with my brother in California, built entirely in-house on a shoestring. Identity, packaging, naming, tone of voice, all of it. Within a year: Wholefoods US and UK, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Bon Marché Paris, KaDeWe Berlin. A successful Kickstarter. Celebrity endorsements. Five Indigo Design Awards. There is something different about building a brand when it is yours. The decisions you make, and the ones you can't afford to get wrong.
"It blows standard grocery brands away... it's so creamy and delicious that it won a head-to-head taste test against the legendary Duke's Mayo."
The Kitchn"Punk attitude — the UFO Organic Burger Sauce is a standout product with its unique flavor combination."
Trend Hunter"A great harissa that beats anything I can find in any grocery store."
Verified Reviewer, Amazon UKRoberto Vanin spent years perfecting a patented winemaking process unlike anything else in the world. What it needed was a brand to match its ambition. Working together from the very beginning, early conversations over coffee at Daylesford in Westbourne Grove, and in-store consumer research into the product and category with consumers, the brand positioning, packaging, visual identity, and brand world came into focus. Not supermarkets, not yet. Aim higher first, establish BOLLE as the finest non-alcoholic wine, then let the positioning do its work. BOLLE is now served in over 100 Michelin-starred restaurants worldwide.
"Coming from a science background, I needed support to translate the product into a brand. Laurence came through a recommendation, and from our first meeting at Daylesford it was a great collaboration. From positioning and packaging to supporting us at trade shows, he was thoughtful, adaptable and always mindful of budget. It gave BOLLE a strong platform to grow internationally."
Roberto Vanin, Founder and CRDQO, BOLLEDeveloped with Howard Fretten at Ethel. Charles has always known what Realfoods by Organico stands for, deeply organic, genuinely principled, and delicious in a way that the packaging had never quite said. The problem wasn't the product. It was the language of the category, worthy, serious, a little holier-than-thou. The organising idea we landed on was simple: The Joy of Real Food. That shift, from organic worthy credentials to the pleasure of eating, opened everything up. New voice, new energy, new design language, all of it inherent in the story, the typography, the illustrations, the words, the colour palette. Rolled out across 60 products.
"It's been a pleasure working with Laurence and Howard. Together they have a lot of experience in the consumer brand space and approach a project with clarity, consistency and strategic depth."
Charles Redfern, MD / Founder, Realfoods by OrganicoLyle & Scott had a strong heritage and genuinely great products. But marketing had been produced on an as-and-when basis for years, and the brand had become inconsistent, the tone of voice scattered. On a three month contract, three days a week, I worked with the team at their London HQ to take the brand concept, Designed for Life, and build a framework that could hold everything together. Brand guidelines, typography, image direction, tone of voice. Then the architecture beneath it, brand partnerships, sub-brand identities, how each one sits within the whole without losing its own character. The team were left with a clear, coherent direction for the brand, structured enough to be consistent, open enough to allow for flexibility and creativity in everything that followed.
"Laurence led creatively on various branded campaigns for Lyle & Scott. He excelled in exploring and applying new visual identities into the campaigns and breathing new life into the heritage brand to engage and excite a millennial and Gen Z audience."
Harry Swinhoe, Brand & Creative Manager, Lyle & ScottJoanna Jensen built Child's Farm from a personal experience with her own children, a sensitive skincare brand that became genuinely loved and trusted by parents everywhere. But after ten years, as the range grew, the brand needed a subtle refresh. Working closely with their in-house design team across 60 products, the brand was sharpened, more recognisable, more impactful, more grown up. Its range extended with confidence. Child's Farm subsequently sold to PZ Cussons for £36.8m.
"Laurence was chosen to redesign the full Child's Farm range due to his expert brand positioning and packaging knowledge in addition to his ability to work in an agile and dynamic way. The results were a meaningfully repositioned brand identity, stand-out packaging design and a project completed to deadline and within budget."
Ben Hovanessian, Brand Director, Child's FarmFounded in 1928 in an East London workshop. Since the 1980s, the brand had been passed through various US venture capital firms, stripped of everything that made it remarkable. Brought in to lead the rebrand, running a team of 15, working closely with the investors in Antwerp. The archives were opened, the Art Deco heritage of its Viennese founder Julius Lowenthal uncovered, and with a young, dynamic team, the brand was rebuilt entirely: identity, product strategy, the products themselves, packaging, trade shows, website, guidelines. Sales up 45% within the first two months.
"We had worked with Laurence and his team across many projects over 10 years. Nothing was ever too much trouble, wherever in the world we needed him. He has a genuine understanding of the business, worked closely with our sales team and all our manufacturing partners, and the work he produces is beautifully crafted. He made the brand something we were truly proud of."
Colibri Inc.Developed with Howard Fretten at Ethel. Wren Loucks had built something genuinely distinctive from her Primrose Hill studio, an interior design practice rooted in holistic design: not decoration applied to a room, but a deep attentiveness to how a person inhabits the world. The ambition was bigger than the postcode suggested. Together we developed a full brand architecture, repositioning be-kin from a well-loved local studio to a luxury international practice, built around the organising idea of The Art of Holistic Design. A world with the clarity and architecture to grow.
"The work helped us reframe be-kin in a way that felt both more elevated and more true to who we are. The thinking brought clarity and structure, giving us a strong foundation to build from."
Wren Loucks, Founder and Creative Director, be-kinI start by understanding what's really going on, the good and the uncomfortable. That's where useful thinking comes from. From there, we get to clarity, what you're saying, how you say it, and what to do next.
For example, an unclear brief wastes money. I've been on both sides, receiving them as a creative and writing them as a client. I know what a clear, defined one unlocks, and what a bad one costs. Most important of all: what are you trying to say, and how do you want your customers to feel?
Sleeves rolled up, thinking and doing, not just advising.
When working together worksThere's no single moment. But it often sounds like one of these:
- something isn't landing, but we can't quite see why
- we need to define, reframe or sharpen the brand
- we're facing a big brand decision and want a second brain
- we want clarity before spending money on execution
- we're working with agencies or consultants and not getting the results we expected
No matter the scale of the issue, I can lend an ear.
How I workThe shape is flexible, a few days a week or month, or broken into hours. If something useful occurs outside working hours, I'll share it. It's always built around where you are right now.
If you want to talk anything through, just get in touch.
laurencelassalle@me.com