A few years ago, my co-founder Glenn Taylor and I made a decision that felt pretty radical and risky at the time. We stopped entering design awards.
Not because we couldn’t win them – we had our share of hunks of metal gathering dust. We stopped because we finally did the maths.
Our annual award submissions were consuming countless hours of creative time, plus thousands of pounds in entry fees that, cumulatively, could fund months of meaningful pro bono work.
So we decided to use that time and money for exactly that. Good Deeds was born.
Stocks Taylor Benson’s branding for Stomp Round Leicester
In a nutshell, Good Deeds is our structured approach to pro bono work. We select meaningful community projects that create long-term partnerships, rather than one-off favours, and commit to causes where design can make a genuine difference.
Our studio HQ happens to be in Leicester. That doesn’t matter to our clients – which include national and global brands like Canon, Baker Hughes, Morrisons and Centrica – but for our people it’s where they live and work. It’s their community.
In desperately seeking validation from judges we’d likely never meet, we were missing opportunities to strengthen that community in a meaningful, mutually beneficial way.
With recent revelations about fabricated case studies and dubious effectiveness stats at major awards, it’s time our industry stopped pretending this emperor has clothes.
The harsh truth about awards ROI
Let’s be blunt – when did you last win new business because of an award? When did that trophy genuinely help you attract better talent, or solve a client’s problem?
Awards give you a moment of industry backslapping, some LinkedIn posts, and take up shelf space. For the most part, that’s it.
But we didn’t just stop doing awards – we asked ourselves what would actually deliver the networking, credibility, and team motivation that awards promise but never deliver, while using our skills for a good cause. The answer was right on our doorstep.
“Let’s be blunt – when did you last win new business because of an award?”
Our Good Deeds initiative delivers genuine new business connections, enhanced tender responses that actually win work, and staff who contribute their own time because they’re genuinely invested. And we see measurable returns that no trophy ever provided.
We wasted years optimising for an audience of peers instead of building relationships that matter. While we were puffing up case studies for judging panels, real opportunities awaited.
Over the six years since we launched Good Deeds, we’ve redirected over 2,500 design hours – around 7% of our total studio capacity – into community partnerships that strengthen our business.
Strategic investment in the community
It’s not just about “giving back” in a charitable way. Yes, we’re supporting great causes – but it runs deeper than that. It’s a smart business strategy too.
Community work creates business advantages that awards simply can’t.
When you’re genuinely embedded in a place, you build relationships with local business leaders, councillors, journalists, and other creative professionals. You become known for something beyond just your client work.
You’re not just another studio – you’re part of the fabric.
Our long-running partnership with the incredible LOROS Hospice recently culminated in Stomp Round Leicester – 40 giant elephant sculptures (and 82 babies) across the city centre.
This project showcases our diverse capabilities better than any award submission, from visual identity to compelling brand storytelling, community engagement to project management at scale.
While other studios scramble for pitches, we’re embedded in our community. Being Stomp Round Leicester’s official design partner delivers PR value, credibility and kudos that reaches far beyond Leicester.
We’ve broadened and strengthened our networks of collaborators, and put the studio front-of-mind for businesses outside our usual stomping ground. Our community commitment impresses prospective clients and strengthens our tender applications, while our team lends their skills to worthy causes.
Don’t be a tourist in your own city
Another of our long-running Good Deeds collaborations has been with Leicester’s oldest live performance venue, The Y Theatre. Linked to the YMCA, it plays a commendable role in tackling youth homelessness – an issue close to Glenn’s heart in particular.
We have a few criteria that help us choose our next Good Deeds project.
Can we solve a genuine design problem? Will this raise awareness for something important?
Do our team members have personal connections that drive authentic investment? And can we build something long-term, rather than completing another project and moving on?
As an employee-owned trust, we make our Good Deeds selection process as democratic as we can to ensure team members get a fair chance to champion causes of their own. When everyone has skin in the game, the work gets better, and the commitment runs deeper.
This isn’t just about being nice. Unlike studios that treat location as irrelevant, we’ve learned that being genuinely embedded somewhere gives you advantages that place-agnostic competitors simply cannot access.
The hard question your studio needs to answer
Awards validate work that’s already done. Our Good Deeds initiative creates work worth doing.
So ask yourself this – which is a better use of your time and money, when it comes to building a stronger studio in the years and decades to come?
We’re not anti-awards per se. If they work for your business model, fine.
But if you’re spending creative time and real budget on industry navel-gazing, while your local creative community struggles for investment, perhaps it’s time to question your choices.
We think every studio leader should ask – are you just chasing the approval of your peers, or real business advantage?
Because after six years of redirecting our awards budget into community partnerships, I’m pretty sure which one pays better dividends for us.
Lois Blackhurst is managing and creative partner at Stocks Taylor Benson.