The Scottish Bee Company
Some projects have a defined beginning and end. This one has had a beginning and six years of what comes after...
The Scottish Bee Company is an established Scottish honey and lifestyle brand with a genuine purpose at its core — supporting bees and pollinators across rural and urban environments. When we started working together, the task was relatively focused: refine the existing brand identity and give it more room to work across a growing range of touchpoints. What followed has been something considerably broader than that.
Six years on, the partnership spans packaging, print, digital, ecommerce, promotional campaigns, educational resources and now strategic creative input across a wider family of connected businesses. It's the kind of relationship that develops when the work is trusted and the thinking behind it is valued — and it's the kind we find most rewarding to be part of.
Where it started
The initial phase centred on taking an existing brandmark and building it into something more flexible and scalable. A honey brand that's growing — in product range, in retail presence, in ecommerce — needs an identity system that can grow with it. A single logo and a loose collection of assets doesn't hold up when you're designing across jars, gift packaging, marketing materials, a Shopify storefront and everything in between.
The work involved refreshing the colour palette, establishing a clearer typography system and developing a more cohesive illustration style. None of it was about reinvention — the brand had genuine equity worth protecting. It was about giving the identity the structure and consistency it needed to keep pace with the business.
Words from the client
“I love working with Studio Creates. We’ve been working together for 6 years now and I can’t recommend them enough! They take a brief and create these amazing designs that perfectly match what we want. They have the most efficient and organised way of working, making design and branding easy to do. Sarah’s an amazing designer and the products that she has produced for us have been top quality. She has excellent attention to detail making sure that our brand flows throughout our website and products. Super friendly and we have been immensely lucky to have them work for us!”
What the partnership has grown into
From that foundation, the scope has expanded steadily and organically. Ongoing packaging development has remained a constant — new products, updated ranges, seasonal variants, supplier liaison and print management. The Shopify website has been an ongoing area of work, supporting the ecommerce experience as the business has scaled its online presence.
Beyond the commercial side, Studio Creates has supported the Repollinate charity initiative — the Scottish Bee Company's educational programme focused on pollinator awareness. Developing materials for that work requires a different register: accessible, purposeful and clear without being simplified. It sits alongside the commercial brand but serves a distinct audience and purpose.
Promotional campaigns, seasonal materials and wider brand development have all been part of the ongoing brief. The breadth of the relationship means we hold a strong understanding of the brand, its audiences and the commercial context in which it operates — which makes the work faster, sharper and more considered than it could be with a less established partnership.
Where it's heading
The relationship is evolving again. As The Scottish Bee Company grows its presence — both online and in retail — Studio Creates is stepping further into a strategic creative partner role alongside the wider team.
That means working alongside paid advertising specialists and email marketing experts, contributing to campaigns and communications that require the brand to show up consistently across an expanding range of channels. It also means thinking more broadly about how the creative work connects to commercial outcomes — not just how things look, but how they perform.
Internally, the team is growing too, and part of our role is ensuring that the brand is properly supported as new people join and new capabilities come in house. Consistency at that stage of a business's growth requires both good foundations and an ongoing creative relationship that understands where those foundations sit.
The Natural Larder Collective
The Scottish Bee Company now sits within the Natural Larder Collective — a wider family of connected brands. Studio Creates supports multiple businesses within that collective across branding, packaging, print and digital, which brings both breadth and an understanding of how the brands relate to one another.
Designing for a family of brands requires a particular kind of thinking. Each business needs its own distinct identity while still sitting coherently alongside its siblings. Managing that across packaging, digital and print — at scale and over time — is work that benefits from a long-standing creative relationship built on trust and genuine understanding of the wider picture.
What six years looks like
A long-term creative partnership like this one is built on more than good design. It's built on knowing a brand well enough to make good decisions quickly, on understanding the business context behind every brief, and on being genuinely invested in the outcomes rather than just the outputs.
The Scottish Bee Company has grown significantly over the years we've worked together. The brand has kept pace with that growth — which is, ultimately, what it was designed to do.
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