Mosaic, which, under the leadership of founder and managing director Laurie Griffiths, has been running for 14 years, is a case of point.

The agency’s client base comprises a mix of both local and national companies including the South East Regional Assembly, Brighton Pier, Marks & Spencer, Samsung and totaljobs.com. Although Mosaic is primarily a print-based agency, it made its first venture into TV advertising at the beginning of this year with the creation of an ad for BMW UK and MotorSport Vision promoting World Touring Cars events at Brands Hatch happening this summer.
 
The ad features world champion Andy Priaulx training at a gym in Guernsey, creating the illusion that the driver is a boxer. Griffiths (pictured right) explains: “World Touring Cars is the contact sport of motor sports and full of high and low speed impact. So for the ad we decided to play around with the idea of boxing, leading the viewer to believe that Priaulx is a fighter until the ad cuts to him on the racing track.

“It was a great project to be involved in as we usually do a lot of print work and it was something very different to what we normally do.”

More recently Mosaic was awarded a project by the London Business School, which appointed the agency to handle the redesign of its Alumni magazine. Griffiths says: “We pitched for the project on the basis of it being a design project. But we won it on the back of wanting to make strategic changes and improve the editorial content as well as the look of the magazine.”

On the strength of working on the redesign Mosaic was also awarded a number of other design projects for the London Business School, which according to Griffiths “is a very prestigious client to have” and has kept the agency “incredibly busy”.

“But,” he says: “the main thing to take from this is that although we could be described as a graphic design consultancy this definition really sells us short.

“As an agency we are more about looking at a client’s work and thinking less about its design and more about what is wrong with it. Often simply repolishing something isn’t enough and it actually needs to be replaced to make it work.”

Another one of Brighton’s high flyers is graphic design consultancy Red Design. Founded in 1996 by Ed Templeton and Hamish Makgill, the agency rose to fame in 1998 when it designed the album cover for Fatboy Slim’s You’ve Come A Long Way featuring the now iconic image of the overweight T-shirted boy.

Since this breakthrough Red Design has managed to build up a solid reputation in the music business and has a string of award-winning sleeve designs to its name. And with recent projects including unit-shifters such as David Gray and McFly as well as the development of the website portal for music channel MTV Europe, the agency is certainly continuing to ride the music wave.

However, Red Design is starting to make a name for itself in other areas of expertise and recently developed the website for Creative Brighton, an initiative launched by Brighton City Council that aims to encourage a thriving creative industries sector in the region.

But as the group has been steadily growing, founder and creative director Templeton felt he was being driven more and more towards running the agency as a business and less and less towards being involved in the creative work. So in January this year Red Design appointed its first managing director, Alastair Reid (pictured left), who joined from Mosaic, where he was commercial director.

Reid says: “Templeton wanted to go back to concentrating purely on the creative side of the business and therefore decided to bring in an expert to run the business side of things. That’s where I came in.”

Reid says that, although a lot of Red Design’s clients are local, being a Brighton-based agency has not stopped the group from luring clients from London and across the UK. He says: “It isn’t that hard for Brighton-based agencies to make inroads into the London market. Brighton has been recognised as a centre of creative excellence and geographically it is so close to London that it may as well be just another tube stop.”

Brighton’s proximity to London has certainly fuelled its success over recent years and this is a point echoed by Simon Deverell (pictured right), creative director of 0404 Creative, who says the city’s location is a definite advantage but not nearly its only benefit.

He says: “We don’t feel that we have any disadvantages over London-based agencies. Design is about getting involved, which can be harder outside of London as Brighton hasn’t got a concentrated network of creatives. But good work speaks for itself and there’s definitely a lot of good work coming out of the city.”

He adds that 2006 has been pretty good for 0404 Creative so far saying: “We have been involved in a very broad range of projects this year and have worked in a variety of different sectors both on a work and client level.

“Until 2004 we did mainly web-based projects but this year we have done a lot of branding work, which has included print, illustration and even film.”

One of the group’s long standing clients is the River Cottage and 0404 Creative has been managing this brand since its inception, being the only creative agency involved with it outside of its publishing ventures. “River Cottage has been a very diverse client for us as we created its logo and its diary and online presence as well as the identity for the title sequences for its series on Channel 4,” says Deverell.

Earlier this year 0404 Creative joined forces with Brighton-based illustrator Matt Johnstone, collaborating on a project for San Miguel to create and promote a website, drinkinbrighton.com. The group designed the site, which provides listings for a selection of bars, while Johnstone created a map of Brighton that shows venues included on the site and was used to promote its launch.

One of Brighton’s youngest agencies, which nonetheless has already made a name for itself on both a regional and national level, is Killer Creative, which was set up last November. Within the first week of its inception the agency took on News Magazines, the magazine division of News International, as a client and founder and account director Cathryn Hughes (pictured left) says: “Being signed on by News Magazines at such an early stage was a really great achievement for us and it has given us a great deal of confidence.”

The agency worked on the launch of women’s real life magazine Love It, which included the production of press ads, outdoor posters and point of sale material. So successful was the campaign that on the back of it News Magazines also appointed Killer Creative to work on the launch of The Sunday Times Insideout magazine, for which the agency developed a direct mail, advertising and point of sale campaign.

Hughes says Killer Creative has doubled its turnover every month since its inception and “in the last six months new business has flooded in as people are hearing about us through recommendation and also local press coverage”.

She adds: “Someone in Brighton needs to raise the game and we really want to be that agency. That’s why we have been very selective over our clients and the kind of work we want to produce.”

Another campaign the agency developed in the spring, was a marketing initiative for holiday youth brand Club 18-30. The group won the account, which comprised the brand’s first ever direct marketing campaign, following an eight-way pitch. Killer Creative created a series of comic postcards featuring Club 18-30 staff in Brighton and the strap line “Ever get the feeling you’re in the wrong place?”.

“The postcards are designed to encourage readers to visit the website club18-30match.com to find their perfect holiday match,” says Hughes. The postcards were inserted into Nuts, Heat, FHM and More and were also be followed by radio advertising and promotions on Galaxy FM and online activity.”

While Brighton certainly boasts a vibrant creative scene it will be interesting to see how the city will evolve in the coming years. It is well placed to deliver on its potential but it won’t be easy as competition is fierce. As the city tries to step out of London’s shadow there are several other creative centres around the UK giving it a run for its money.

But perhaps the last word on this should go to Red Design’s Reid who says the future for Brighton agencies depends on their own ambitions. “Brighton’s location is no longer a barrier and it is all about whether you are happy to settle for what you have or whether you want to push hard and strive for bigger clients and better work. There are no limits apart from your own ambition.”