“I had all this knowledge and experience, but I couldn’t use any of that content,” Julia explains. “I couldn’t go online and say, ‘Look at this kitchen’ or ‘Trust me to interior design your whole house’ because all those projects belonged to my previous employer. I was starting from scratch.”
We had to be really creative. We couldn’t rely on a traditional portfolio. Instead, we worked with what Julia had: professional photographs of her own home (currently in development, designed and built by Julia and her architect husband), and deep conversations about what she actually does. “The team had to layer it and layer it until it could be very usable,” Julia says.
That’s where the naming came from. In a one-on-one call with Sophie, Julia was thinking out loud about the problem. “I kept saying the word ‘room,’” Julia recalls. “Tell me again what you do. Tell me again. And I just kept saying room — I can come to your house, I can look at the room you’re in, I can take a bathroom, I can do this room. And she went, “What about Room?’ And I got goosebumps. I said, ‘I think that’s it.’” Everything Julia does happens in a room: floors, ceilings, walls, fitted cabinetry, freestanding furniture, finishes, paint.
It wasn’t a lightning-bolt moment of genius. It was Sophie listening — really listening — until the obvious thing became clear. “She was listening to me and really understanding,” Julia says. “If she wasn’t paying attention, she wouldn’t have heard it.”
Ultimately, Electric Peach worked with Julia to help her create a brand and business she’s proud of and excited about, but also comfortable with.
I knew from the start that my website wasn't going to bring thousands and thousands of visitors. But I also knew that it had to be right for that one person or two people that sought me out. So I felt I did it in the correct way by investing the money and the time with Electric Peach. 100%. The foundations, the building blocks are in place, ready for me.
Brand development and positioning for a freelance interior designer transitioning from corporate to solo practice, with a particular challenge: no portfolio she could publicly use.
Julia left a 17-year career as a director at Mowlem & Co, a luxury bespoke kitchen and interiors company, to set up her own business. She had extensive experience and an impressive portfolio — kitchens, dressing rooms, whole-house fit-outs for footballers’ houses and high-end clients — but couldn’t use any of it. The work belonged to her previous employer.
The Electric Peach Collective faced a creative challenge: how do you build a compelling brand and online presence for someone with deep expertise but a blank slate to show for it?
The result was Room — a brand that crystallised everything Julia does, arrived at through deep listening and collaboration. It was a huge leap. “It was quite a big thing for me,” Julia says. “Leaving a very safe, regular salary and a team of people I really enjoyed working with, and committing to expenditure like this, rather than just saying, ‘Right, I’m going to be Julia Brown and here’s my Instagram page.’” But she knew it was worth the investment. The brand identity, positioning, and website gave her a professional foundation that elevated what she already had: reputation, skill, and word-of-mouth momentum.
We took Julia through our brand development and positioning process, working on visual identity and the website build.
The team created a brand guidelines document and social media strategy, then layered Julia’s limited existing work — her own home, carefully art-directed — into a story that communicated her full scope and expertise. The Electric Peach Collective wove the visual language into every touchpoint and shaped Julia’s voice and messaging.
But our role wasn’t restricted to brand design. Julia was in a vulnerable position: she’d left a secure job to take a risk on her own business. The team became part mentor, part therapist, part business counsellor during those first six months.
“Although we were talking about brand and messaging and what the business should be called, they were thinking through the practical things,” Julia says. “But sometimes I’d come on a Zoom and say, ‘You’ll never guess what happened — I’ve just had an email from my previous boss, or this has happened. What do you think I should do?’ They were like my therapists through the first three to six months. They were there at the right time. They were good mentors, therapists, business counsellors.”
Sophie, in particular, had a gift for belief. “She’s very girl power, very like ‘you don’t need corporate, you can do this,’ which is a great vibe,” Julia said. “But that alone isn’t enough; you still have to have substance and hard work to go with it. And I liked how Sophie recognised that in me and pushed me to do what I needed to do. So it was very positive.”
Julia Brown is an interior designer who spent ten years as a director at Mowlem & Co, a high-end bespoke kitchen company, where she designed everything from kitchens to dressing rooms to whole-house fit-outs for footballers and wealthy clients across the North East. When she set up on her own, she brought that same meticulous approach but without a team to fall back on. Now it’s just her, doing the design work herself while also managing the business – a side she used to delegate.
Because she was sitting looking at me and really listening, and I said, 'Well, I do this in a room,' and I must have said room a few times. And when she said, 'What about room?' it hit the nail on the head. Then we messaged Kirsty and said, 'What do you think?' and Kirsty started weaving her magic. I was really happy with what Sophie did, really happy with what Kirsty did with the visual elements.
