North breakaway sets its sights

Two senior designers from North Design have left the London consultancy to establish their own group. Made Thought will specialise in print and digital media.

Paul Austin and Ben Parker originally met at Ravensbourne College before they both joined North in 1996. But the pair decided to pursue a different avenue in an effort to retain their focus on “high creative” work.

“We were at North since it was set up four years ago and now seemed like the right time to establish our own group. It was something we both wanted to do,” says Austin.

“North has a lot of bigger corporate projects which are creative, but we wanted to focus on higher creative stuff and more screen-based media.”

Austin and Parker are working alone at the moment, but will take on new staff as and when projects demand it. “We certainly don’t want to become a big company” adds Austin.

North Design has replaced the duo with three new designers and a project manager.