One award-winning project, two babies, offices in two cities, several completed projects and more in the pipeline. What a fantastic first year for our business, with clients that include a top 5 pharmaceutical company, a top 5 technology company, a top 5 digital agency, and the world’s largest media investment company, we are feeling pretty proud of ourselves and what we have achieved.
The Year in Detail
June 2015
On the 9th June last year, Ivy and I took the brave decision to found our company, Contrast, with the vision of designing space for the digital age. Our first company milestone was securing our first client, Sanofi, one of the giants of the pharmaceutical industry – we secured the appointment to design and deliver their new Singapore HQ.
The next milestone was the birth of Ivy’s daughter, Charlotte, 7 days after we founded the company.
July 2015
This month got off to a great start with the arrival of my daughter, Hera, exactly one month after we founded the company. It was a busy month at Contrast, with the 2 new arrivals and the practical completion of phase 1 of our first project. People started to move in at Sanofi. Phase 2 was ongoing.
August 2015
Typically a holiday month. We were still busy completing phase 2 at Sanofi and preparing for the official launch of our company on September 1st .
September 2015
We launched the company with our branding and identity finalised. Our website went live, and we moved into our new workplace. Having trialled many co-working spaces in Singapore, we settled in to the Collective Works. We also secured several new projects, including a legal firm and Group M, Mediacom, and Maxus.
October 2015
October was a busy month, with all our new projects, and the completion of the final phase of Sanofi. It was so exciting to have a project finally completed, and to receive so much positive feedback about the environment we created for the occupants.
November 2015
What a fantastic month for us! We won our first design award for our first project, Sanofi won the Tarkett Gold Award for Innovation, with Gensler taking the silver award. We also completed our second project for AdventBalance.
December 2015
This month, we were awarded our first piece of workplace strategy work by Possible, one of the world’s top 5 digital agencies. As well as ongoing work on projects, we spent this month strategizing our expansion, and commenced negotiations to open our first office outside Singapore.
January 2016
The year got off to a fantastic start, with Payal joining us on a full-time basis and our appointment on a new project for the Collective Works, to be located at Capital Tower.
February 2016
Preparations were well underway to launch our India operations, with our new Director, Suruchi, joining the team on a full-time basis. Several of our projects also started on-site.
March 2016
Our Indian company finally launched, and we secured our first project in India for Japanese technology company, Horiba.
April 2016
We secured yet another client this month, with Microsoft appointing us on a new project in Singapore, and the India team also winning new projects. Work is ongoing furiously on the Collective Works project, which was due to handover at the end of the month.
May 2016
This was a busy month; the Collective Works’ new office space had its soft launch, we also handed over the Mediacom and Maxus new space. The feedback on all our projects from end-users was overwhelmingly positive.
June 2016
It’s been another great month, so far, having just been appointed on another high profile but top-secret project, which will be unveiled later in the year, and we have also been appointed on our first project in Jakarta. We end our first year with a big celebration to celebrate the launch of the new Collective Works office at Capital Tower. What a fantastic party to attend on the eve of our first birthday.
This has been an amazing first year for our business, and we have had some fantastic support from our clients and industry partners. We are very much looking forward to our second year, and hopefully growing and expanding further.
