At Lyon & Lyon we’ve been fortunate to work with brands that are genuinely trying to make the world a better place. From biotech to sustainable packaging, these projects remind us that design isn’t just about making things look good, it can help accelerate ideas that change how we live.
Earlier this year we decided it was time to give some of that back. We launched our first Design Give Back competition, opening our studio doors to impact-driven consumer brands that needed that little lift. The idea was simple: 20 brands entered, our whole team judged them in-house, and one winner would receive our design time completely free of charge.
The response blew us away. Every entry had a story worth telling. But one brand in particular stood out.
Why Seep?
Seep was founded by Laura Harnett, who is on a mission to reinvent cleaning with plastic-free tools that work brilliantly and look good while they do it. What struck us was not just Laura’s vision, though her passion for eliminating waste is infectious, it was the sheer tangibility of the problem. Microplastics are in almost every home, shed from something as ordinary as a washing-up sponge. It is an issue that is easy to overlook but impossible to ignore once you know it.
The Project
Our role was clear: help Seep tell this story in a way that was both impactful and easy to digest. The brief was to create an animation for a Channel 4 x B Corp ad takeover, showing the journey of microplastics from sponge to sea to human body. It is a complex chain, but the challenge was to make it feel simple, clear, and unforgettable.
We leaned into Seep’s existing brand style, a mix of soft illustration and flowy animation, to make something accessible without losing impact. Jim, our motion designer, played a key role here, handling both illustration and animation to bring the sequence to life.
The Outcome
The final animation did not just make the cut, it became part of a national campaign that ran during Taskmaster’s prime-time ad break, with Deborah Meaden (who backed Seep on Dragons’ Den) starring in the spot. For a brand working on a tiny budget, this was huge visibility. The campaign landed in Campaign Magazine and is now running across VOD with targeted reach.
Laura summed it up best in her note to us:
“I just wanted to say a big thank you for the beautiful work that you did for us for the B Corp x Channel 4 ad takeover. We were the only direct response ad and on a tiny budget and we wouldn’t have been able to make it without your help.”
For us, this is exactly what the Design Give Back was all about. Using creativity to amplify the voices of brands making a difference. Seep are well on their way to eliminating 1 billion plastic cleaning items from landfill by 2030, and if our animation helps one more person swap out a plastic sponge, then that is design doing its job.
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