WFM partners venture into new consultancies

Two new consultancies have launched following the split of Bath design group WFM.

WFM partners Peter Whitehead and Nigel Mills have each set up new groups, both based in Bath. Around six WFM staff, including two designers, were made redundant in the split.

Both Mills and Whitehead put the demise of WFM down to their pulling in different directions.

Whitehead has formed a five-strong consultancy called Radio. Three of the staff – graphic designer Sue Randall and account handlers Julie Rands and Pamela Day – are from WFM. Radio creative director Patrick Starke was recruited from IBH and has previously worked at Nucleus Design, Springett and Design House.

Radio has secured long-term WFM client Hasbro and has just taken part in a five-way unpaid creative pitch for the corporate identity of Bristol’s Watershed media centre. Radio should hear within a month if it has won the Watershed work. It is not known who else is on the pitch list.

Mills has named his new consultancy Ignition. Describing it as a “strategic” offer, he says the four-strong team will concentrate on conceptual design for literature and other promotional material. Ignition is looking to recruit a second designer to work alongside existing designer Adam Lloyd-Smith.

Mills adds that he and Whitehead “had been operating fairly separately for two or three years – WFM had become something very different from the kind of operation we wanted it to be”.