DixonBaxi’s co-founder shares his hard-won wisdom on building a studio that defines success on its own terms.
Sick of social media? Creative Boom’s own network, The Studio, offers a refreshing alternative: a place for real conversations and actionable insights. Recently, our members enjoyed a lively talk by Simon Dixon, co-founder of DixonBaxi, who explored the story behind one of the UK’s most respected design studios.
“We have this idea that we’re a 24-year overnight success,” he began. “People ask us, how do you have an agency, how do you get these clients, how do you get whatever? It’s years and years of just showing up and hopefully people liking what you do.”
From a quick glance at DixonBaxi’s client list—the likes of Formula 1, AC Milan and the Premier League—it might seem like the studio materialised fully formed with blue-chip clients in tow. But the reality is far more nuanced, built on patient persistence.
Design for life
At the heart of DixonBaxi’s philosophy lies what Simon called “design for life”. “We want to design for everyone, everywhere,” he explained. “We like the power of democratised design. So we like the fact that we can design for someone in Mexico City and someone in Berlin and someone in Leeds and someone in York.”
This mindset comes with its challenges, of course. “Typically, when you design at scale, it can get a bit rounded and homogenised. So we want to design with intent. That’s what’s important to us, the people we design for.”
Simon went on to describe a pivotal moment in the studio’s evolution. After years of building their portfolio and taking on various projects, they reached a crucial realisation.
“We realised that it wasn’t about what we did,” Simon recalls. “It was curating what we didn’t do, saying no and refusing certain things. Being busy doesn’t make us successful. Making money isn’t the definition of success.”
What followed was a systematic evaluation of their values. “We started to think about what we didn’t want to do. Working with people who are disrespectful and pessimistic. Working for free on pitches. Working with toxic clients. And we didn’t just want to work for money.”
The result was a decision many would consider commercial suicide. “We resigned six clients, our parents, our bank manager, and a lot of the team thought that was a bit of a crazy idea. But it freed us up. It created this situation where we could talk about what we believe in. The things that actually matter underneath the design, underneath the creativity. The things that drive what we do.”
Simon was refreshingly honest about the cost of taking this stand. “Belief costs,” he admitted. “It’s a hard thing to make choices where you turn work down and you don’t do certain things. But we believe that it’s worth paying that price anyway and self-determining.”
Defining your values
From this period of reflection emerged two crucial lists that now guide everything DixonBaxi does. The first focuses on creative purpose. “We like the idea of risk-taking work,” Simon explained. “Being optimistic, showing up, being curious, embracing uncertainty, and that thrill of creating for a living and doing something fresh.”
The second addresses how they want to work. “We want to embrace that change in a positive way and work the way that suits us and the team. Be diverse, equitable, and emotionally intelligent. Be there for people, take risks and do the right things.”
Patience, Simon emphasised, underpins both approaches. “We also think it’s important to be patient because a good career takes time. You can’t just magic yourself into a brilliant job. You have to fight for it. You have to wrestle for it. So we wanted to be patient in that growth.”
What followed this period of self-reinvention was work that truly reflected who DixonBaxi had become; projects with clients like AC Milan and the Premier League that were more thoughtful and human-centred. But for Simon, the real success isn’t measured in prestigious client wins. “The work is important, the style of work, but it’s the people that are most important,” he told the online audience.
“Behind me through the glass are 52 other people,” he added. “And for me, it’s not Dixon and Baxi. It’s the space between those two people, and we share that with those 52 people, and that’s where I get my joy now—seeing them creating things that define their career. And our job really is to create the space for them to do that.”
Creating tomorrow today
Rather than passively waiting for industry trends to dictate their direction, DixonBaxi takes an active approach to shaping its future. “The future isn’t predicted,” noted Simon. “You’ve got to make your version of it because if you don’t, the world will change around you. So it’s better to be part of the change on your terms and think about your version of the future, rather than that one that’s spewed out by a particular person’s idea of what’s next. Because there’s a lot of negative misery porn out there and we don’t need that.”
Their solution is “Super Futures”: an annual creative sabbatical where the entire studio shuts down. “Next week the entire studio is going to shut for a week and we’re going to take a creative sabbatical, make things, do some talks, do some charts, do lots of different things just to creatively reboot,” he revealed.
Last year’s experiment was particularly ambitious: “Everybody got four weeks to make a project. Not just the designers; the producers, the finance people, the growth people, the studio assistant, everybody in the studio. And they all made something. It was amazing because we had these 50 projects all using new technologies.”
The philosophy behind such a time investment is clear. “When the tools are all the same, thinking differently is a superpower,” Simon pointed out. “So if you’re using software and systems and intelligent technologies, you all end up at the same place. Whereas if you start to think, how do I use that technology for a different reason, a personal reason, a team reason, you come up with something more specific to you.”
One particularly striking example involved Hayden, one of the producers. “He made an AR experience for AC Milan. He built it himself. So you could go into the crowd as an AC Milan fan and feel what it was like to be an AC Milan fan. This guy is a producer. He didn’t train in creativity, but he made an AR project. And it shows you that if you create space, anybody can create.”
Formula 1
Another demonstration of how these principles get put into action came via DixonBaxi’s remarkable 20-year relationship with Formula 1. This began with a television graphics project and evolved into a comprehensive brand system for a global audience.
The challenge was immense—creating a design system for dramatically different audiences. “In Europe, people understand the history of the sport,” explained Simon. “They know the flags, the teams, the locations. They watch three hours of it, the buildup, everything. But in Asia, which is a new market, it’s all about celebrity. It’s about lifestyle. It’s about behind the scenes and ‘drive to survive’. In North America, which is the other growth market, they watch three to four minutes of highlights and don’t watch the race at all.”
DixonBaxi’s approach emphasises human insight over pure data. “Creativity at any kind of scale, when you’re dealing with hundreds of millions of people, is pointless without insight,” Simon reasoned. “You’re just guessing otherwise. So we want insight. But the problem is not everybody’s Gen Z, and not everyone’s a piece of data. Not everyone’s a user. They’re human beings. They’re people.”
This creative process includes a distinctively collaborative approach. “We call it a campfire. And this is where we try and find the signal in the noise… the whole team lays the work out on the table and everybody around the table has an equal voice at that point. It doesn’t matter if you’re an ECD, a producer or an intern. We’re looking at the work, not your work.”
Main takeaway
Overall, what emerged from Simon’s session with The Studio wasn’t a blueprint for agency success in the traditional sense. Instead, it was a masterclass in building a business around principles rather than just profit, understanding that sustainable success comes from patient relationship-building rather than quick wins, and that the most powerful creative work comes when you dare to define success on your own terms.
As Simon concluded, “Our job really is to ignore the noise and create things that cut through and make a difference. The strongest work really isn’t about chasing relevance; it creates its own relevance.”
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