Fjord Stockholm

A study of team and culture that led to the growth of the best design studio in Stockholm

Role

Managing Director

Industry

Consulting

Duration

8 Years

A life changing journey of team culture and design excellence

A core team of three founded the Fjord Stockholm studio as Fjord expanded from UK, Germany and Finland into Sweden.

Our journey started in an tiny office hotel all the way through an acquisition by Accenture to a team of 50 designers. Together, we delivered some the best digital solutions across all segments for the top retailers, banks, operators and travel corporations in Sweden and overseas.

But this case study is about culture and team. We were helped in the "glory days" of design by heavy growth in the design business but we won by

Building a highly diverse group of designers with over 22 nationalities in the studio.
Running an a program office that ensured there was budget and time for the team to develop
We invested in competence development through collaboration and creative business development

Here are just a few examples of what was a career highlight for me:

VR Kitchen - Design led prototyping

An insurance concept for helping home owners better identify and mitigate risks at home. Here is the fantastic pitch for the idea featuring Robin and Isabelle :)

This idea led to a paper prototype of an entire miniature kitchen and a fully fledged VR prototype that allowed users to browse and interact in the kitchen (even to extinguish fires!).

Here is my daughter Elsie, "testing out" the kitchen! Extreme origami skills on display from many creative people at the studio!

Final deliverable was a web based VR concept that could be used in Google Cardboard!

A life changing journey of team culture and design excellence

A core team of three founded the Fjord Stockholm studio as Fjord expanded from UK, Germany and Finland into Sweden.

But this case study is about culture and team. We were helped in the "glory days" of design by heavy growth in the design business but we won by

Building a highly diverse group of designers with over 22 nationalities in the studio.
Running an a program office that ensured there was budget and time for the team to develop
We invested in competence development through collaboration and creative business development

Here are just a few examples of what was a career highlight for me:

VR Kitchen - Design led prototyping

An insurance concept for helping home owners better identify and mitigate risks at home. Here is the fantastic pitch for the idea featuring Robin and Isabelle :)

This idea led to a paper prototype of an entire miniature kitchen and a fully fledged VR prototype that allowed users to browse and interact in the kitchen (even to extinguish fires!).

Here is my daughter Elsie, "testing out" the kitchen! Extreme origami skills on display from many creative people at the studio!

Final deliverable was a web based VR concept that could be used in Google Cardboard!

The Magic Table - Machine learning and physical design

Curiousity to work with Google's new image recognition algorithms led the team to create a concept for retailer to help consumers more easily understand the ingredients and insights of food products as well as to more easily compare different products -simply by resting them on a smart table!

Isthmus - Connecting studios together

As Fjord grew, the team found it harder to keep a track of what was going on in different studios. It wasn't a problem to message people on Slack but we lacked a sense of community between locations and wanted to more easily get a sense of what was happening at any one moment in another country. What started as an experiment in the potential of connected devices became the Isthmus concept.

We ended up deplying a live web platform that allowed studios to remain connected, at deployed a connected sensor package to each studio as a starter kit!

This is just a tip of the iceberg of creative initiatives such as:

Friday Breakfasts - rotating ownership by different team members to host breakfast every week

Fjord Family - Sunday get togethers with our kids to explore creativity and building together

Equinox - an annual trip someplace warm to bring the entire company together once a year

Fjord Journeys - a n unforgettable travel experince for anyone who stayed with the company to witness a real Fjord

Fjord Trends - annual trend report created globally to point out the most important design and social trends

The Gnome Awards - annual recognition of the most dedicated Fjordian in the studio - chosen by their peers

Fjord Stockholm - greatest colleagues in no particular order:

Katri H (who started it all!)

Aline K

Anatoliy G

Anders M

Begga H

Catrin A

Charlotte D

Christian C

Daniel M

Debbie D

Deborah K

Denise H

Edison L

Elena K

Elodie T

Fabio M

Felipe M

Filipa S

Fran M

Fredrik H

Giuseppe P

Gohar A

Helena R

Johan H

John F

John H

Johnny H

Jonas H

Kaia H

Karin P

Kaya H

Kajsa G

Kim E

Kristoffer J

Kwan P

Isabelle S

Lary A

Lena E

Maija K

Magnus S

Manu B

Marysol O

Mattias A

Monica H

Monika Z

Niklas G

Patricio C

Per Y

Raquel M

Rebecka S

Robin F

Ruth Ann S

Sandra Ö

Sara G

Sara W

Sara F

Sarah Lee L

Sigrid H

Simon H

Simon K

Sofia P

Sverker C

Tobias S

Tomek A

Vesa R

Victor L

Vincent G

Yaprak G

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