A conscious e-commerce design agency

The progression from blue (cooler) to red (warmer) stripes portrays the long-term increase of average global temperature from 1850 (left side of graphic) to 2018 (right side of graphic).

As designers and creatives we are used to looking outwards into the world to get inspiration, to seek connection, to deliver for our clients. But sometimes it’s important to make time to look inwards to see what is driving our passion and why we make our choices.

We've recently made the conscious decision to ensure that the work we are doing is net positive for people and the planet. This means working with more brands that have a social and environmental purpose, encouraging our existing clients to take action and making design and development choices that work for people and planet rather than against.

We are on the start of this journey but let's dial back to the beginning to see why we've got here.

Ben, our Founder, started Eleven in 2020. The beginning of the pandemic offered him an opportunity to leave his in-house head of design role and set foot into Eleven. Ben has worked as a creative designer for 15+ years covering the worlds of festivals, experiential design, brand campaigns, packaging design, e-commerce...etc etc there isn't much that he hasn't done! If Ben had a dating profile it would read something like this - Enjoys surfing, oat flat whites, playing rough & tumble with his kids, attempting to beat his 5km PB and meeting new people.

As Eleven has grown, we have found that e-commerce really floats our boat but we were left with an uncomfortable feeling that we were helping to fuel a society where consumption was king. But we also reflected that there were others thinking along the same lines - a growing movement of ethical, sustainable and future thinking brands who want to create circularity and reverse the trend of over consumption. This got us thinking, we can use our design and creative prowess to champion, power-up and create cut through for these brands and also encourage others to make incremental changes. So we put our thinking caps on and designed a strategy to not only help our clients but also how to become a more conscious agency ourselves. This is a work in progress but progress is something we applaud.

So here is our agency Manifesto, our reason for being...

Our Manifesto:

Good design is not just about something looking good, it's about the reaction that it provokes in people. 

We acknowledge that design and e-commerce are part of the culture of consumerism which plays its part in driving climate change and the exploitation of people. With this acknowledgment comes a desire to act. We want to move away from fast fashion, throw away culture and fad products.

We use the reaction that design provokes as a force for good in powering brands with purpose. We use design to make consumers notice, make them think, make them loyal to brands who care about people and our planet. We aren’t here to greenwash and we aren’t here to preach, we know we still have a long way to go ourselves. So let’s ditch the stigmas attached to not being perfect and let’s have conversations about how to make small incremental changes to leave a positive legacy for people and the planet on which we all live.