Human-centred design and innovation studio

London · working internationally

Complexity,
made easy
to adopt.

Philpott helps leaders turn ideas into inspiring experiences, brands, AI products, tools and frameworks that people can understand, trust and act on.

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Who this is for

For leaders responsible for transformation, innovation, sustainability, research engagement programmes and impact: when the work matters, but is not yet landing.

Trusted on complex work

Selected organisations we have worked with and alongside.

  • CABI (opens in a new tab)
  • Royal Astronomical Society (opens in a new tab)
  • Gates Foundation (opens in a new tab)
  • Luxembourg Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition (opens in a new tab)
  • Wide.co (opens in a new tab)
  • Open Data Institute (opens in a new tab)
  • NBCUniversal (opens in a new tab)
  • Libraries Connected (opens in a new tab)
  • RADA Business (opens in a new tab)
  • Icebreaker One (opens in a new tab)
  • Intel (opens in a new tab)
  • British Land (opens in a new tab)
  • ASML (opens in a new tab)
  • Australian National University (opens in a new tab)
  • Visa (opens in a new tab)

Selected proof

Different sectors.
One proven approach.

01

CABI + Gates Foundation

Multi-territory research becomes an online data governance tool.

We helped turn five and a half years of agricultural research across twelve countries and thirty-two organisations into the FAIR Process Framework: a six-step learning platform with workbooks, films and clear user journeys.

Read the case study: CABI + Gates Foundation
02

Open Data Institute

AI needs data, good AI needs good data.

From creating the ODI brand in 2013 to shaping tools such as the Data Ethics Canvas and Data Spectrum, we have helped complex data ideas become recognisable, approachable and useful over a long-term partnership.

Read the case study: Open Data Institute
03

ADA.ADA.ADA

Addressing diversity in tech with Ada Lovelace.

Research into Ada Lovelace became an interactive touring performance, participatory algorithm and learning programme designed to work across museums, schools, universities and corporate campuses.

Read the case study: ADA.ADA.ADA

AI adoption and AI products

An AI front door for your team.

People-first AI integration. We design and deliver easy-to-adopt front doors to AI assistance, built around how your team really works.

It takes the time-consuming tasks away from the team, leaving them time to perform at their best: as people, as experts and as themselves. We use interactive storytelling so people understand the tool, trust it and actually use it.

Map the work

We map your workflows and business objectives, and find the research, briefings, reporting and drafting that eat your team's week.

Listen to the team

We learn the human way your team works, so the tool fits their judgement, language and habits.

Deliver the front door

One easy-to-adopt entry point to AI assistance that people ask in plain language, built around your systems and knowledge.

In practice

We are delivering one now for a consultancy: an AI front door to their CRM, where research, briefings and proposals get done for the team. It is designed to turn hours of proposal work into minutes, so they have time to build relationships and win work.

What's the admin that eats your team's week?

What we do

Five ways to make important work usable.

These are not five separate services. Strong programmes often need several at once, held under one direction.

  1. 01

    Turn complexity into useful formats

    Frameworks, tools, platforms and AI products people can use without an expert beside them.

  2. 02

    Build brands that carry ideas

    Identity, language and systems that keep their meaning, so teams adopt the brand and use it with confidence.

  3. 03

    Design experiences people can enter

    Live, digital and physical encounters understood through participation, not presentation.

  4. 04

    Create narratives that move people

    Stories that engage people emotionally and shift behaviour. We turn research into reports, campaigns, films and publications that move boards, funders, policymakers and the public to act on new knowledge.

  5. 05

    Activate capability, networks and culture

    Training, templates and programmes that leave people able to carry the work forward.

How we work

From uncertainty to action.

We find the real obstacle, agree the direction, build the right form, test it with people and leave the capability behind.

  1. 01Discover
  2. 02Frame
  3. 03Make
  4. 04Test
  5. 05Embed

DIFFERENT WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER

What is it, who is it for and why should they care?

01

Start with clarity

Something important is falling short and the reason is still unclear.

A named problem, an aligned direction and a defensible brief.

02

Commission a focused project

A framework, brand, platform, publication, experience or learning resource needs to exist and be adopted.

One coherent, usable outcome delivered end to end.

03

Build a long-term partnership

Complex, evolving work needs continuity of judgement across strategy, brand and production.

Institutional memory, consistent output and growing internal capability.

About Philpott Design

One connected practice, not five suppliers to coordinate.

We hold strategy, creative work, AI and digital product design, experience design and capability building together, so the framework, story, experience and tools reinforce one another rather than arriving as disconnected parts.

Underneath it all is storytelling. We use it to engage people emotionally, because that is what changes what they do.

Start here

Tell us what people need to understand, trust or act on, and where the work is getting stuck.