Graphical House partnered with the MSc Creative Industries programme at Edinburgh Futures Institute in academic year 2025-2026, providing students with a live strategic brief that offered valuable insight into the realities of contemporary design consultancy. By opening genuine industry challenges to the classroom, the studio gave students the opportunity to engage with real-life questions that creative agencies face as the industry evolves.
A Glasgow-based brand and design consultancy, Graphical House works with international clients to transform their future through design, combining branding, digital experiences, content, and strategy to build meaningful relationships with their audiences. The studio shared with the student cohort real strategic questions currently shaping its own future, giving students an opportunity to engage with the strategic, commercial, and operational realities of running a creative consultancy.
Throughout the collaboration, members of the Graphical House team shared their experiences and offered insights into how creative decisions are informed by client needs, commercial considerations, and long-term business objectives. By engaging directly with design agency practitioners, students gained a clearer understanding of consultancy as a relationship-focused discipline that extends far beyond visual design or technologies.
The Futures Institute’s partnership with Graphical House demonstrates its ongoing commitment to supporting emerging creative professionals. Investing time in students allows the studio to contribute to the development of future designers, strategists, and creative leaders while helping students connect academic theory with professional practice. Providing access to live industry challenges enables learners to develop skills in strategic thinking, communication, and problem-solving that will be valuable throughout their careers.
Collaborations such as this strengthen the relationship between industry and education by creating opportunities for knowledge exchange and shared learning.
“Certain aspects of our practice have evolved organically over the years, so the students’ thoughtful and sometimes unexpected questions gave us an interesting opportunity to consider some of those developments more consciously. Articulating decisions and ways of working that have become instinctive over time was a valuable part of the exchange. The students got an honest view of the realities and uncertainties of running a creative practice, while their curiosity and fresh perspective encouraged us to look at our own practice differently, and will undoubtedly inform how we continue to develop it.”
-Gabriel Durnan (Director) and Tony Dunworth (Managing Director), Graphical House
