The relationship with Elmwood was one that developed quite quickly, from going up to seeing them, to seeing what they’d done in the past.
From there, we got very closely involved with them. They became, again, part of our own team in a way and even now, three or four years down the track, we’ve still got a very good working relationship with them, very open, I think that’s important and we had a very open relationship with them – we told them what we could afford, what we couldn’t afford, what our aspirations were etc - and they were able to accommodate that and as such, work to the level that we needed to. I also have to say that they approached it fantastically and whilst we agreed a budget, I know that they put in a lot more value than that sum of money came to and allowed us to really, basically, develop an outstanding piece of design work that was not just about the physical appearance of the products but actually helped us to re-segment the market. And interestingly enough is that having re-segmented the market, the big multi-nationals that we spoke about are now trying to copy us, which has been quite flattering.
Our relationship with Elmwood is ongoing. I think design…our experience with design is it doesn’t simply stand still, it has to evolve and develop and even from the original work they’ve done, we’ve learnt and developed and we’re continually moving forward in different ways. We’ve got new products, we’re going to add to the range next year and we’re working with them on those new developments. But certainly, our relationship with them right from the outset was influenced by the work that we did with the Design Council and the work the Design Council did with us. And introducing us to different elements to design, making us think about design differently to how we’d done before and also having the privilege of networking with some very high calibre design people who all helped to influence and shape our new view, if you like, of design.