Studio news · 6 October 2026
From a uni studio to Mammoth: how Chris and I met
Two design students met on day one at the University of Essex in 2014. Six years, one London internship and a lot of magazine pages later, they started Mammoth. This is how it happened.
Stew McNicol
People often ask how Mammoth started. The honest answer is: on a graphic design course, with two people who couldn’t agree on a font.
2014: Essex
Chris and I met in 2014 on the graphic design degree at the University of Essex. We were very different students. I was the one asking why, writing the rationale and fussing over the details. Chris was the one with the idea nobody saw coming, usually sketched on the back of something at the last minute. It turns out that’s a pretty good combination. By the second year we were talking about running our own studio one day.
We didn’t do it straight away, and I’m glad. We both knew we needed to learn how the industry actually worked first.
Going our separate ways
I went to London for an internship at a global PR and communications agency, working on campaigns for big-name brands. It was fast, busy and brilliant training in how big agencies think. After that I came home to Essex as lead designer at the largest further education provider in North Essex, learning how to keep a big organisation’s brand consistent across a huge amount of work.
Chris went into magazines, designing national and international titles. If you want to learn type, layout and deadlines, there’s no better school than a magazine. You turn around pages at a pace most designers never experience, and every page has to work.
We stayed close the whole time, swapping work, picking holes in each other’s projects and keeping the studio idea alive.
2020: Mammoth
In 2020 we decided it was time. Yes, that 2020. Starting a business in the year everything shut down was either brave or daft, but it meant we built Mammoth to work remotely from day one, which has served us well ever since.
The name stuck because a mammoth is big, a bit unexpected and impossible to ignore. That’s what we wanted our work to be. We’re based in Manningtree, on the Essex and Suffolk border, and work with clients right across the UK and Europe.
What we’ve learned along the way
- Two different brains are better than two similar ones. I bring the strategy, Chris brings the creativity, and the best work happens in the argument in the middle. You can meet us both properly here.
- Stay small on purpose. Clients deal with the people doing the work. Nothing gets lost in a handover.
- Say yes to variety. We’ve branded scaffolders and charities, built websites for recruiters and designed pitch decks that helped start-ups raise millions. Variety keeps us sharp.
- Look after the people who look after you. Some of our clients have been with us for over six years, like Stephen James Partnership.
Where we are now
Six years in, Mammoth is busier and more ambitious than ever. We’ve had a rebrand of our own, started a sister studio for trades businesses, The Trade Marks, been named in the Essex Tech50, and helped Stepping Out with Carers walk 20 million steps.
Not bad for two students who couldn’t agree on a font. (For the record, we still can’t.)
If you’d like to work with us, have a look at what we do and our work, or send us a message. We’d love to hear from you.
