Our Story

Back in 2015, we had the idea to set up a different type of agency. One that did away with the faff of other agency processes. Having worked in marketing departments for over a decade, we took everything that we loved about working with agencies and started Bitter Lemon Creative.

What’s in a name?

Research tells us that the most memorable and therefore the best company names are those that include a fruit or a number. The very best company names also tell readers what you do and where. By that logic, A51 Sheds is the greatest business name ever because (*spoiler alert*) they sell sheds on the A51 - but we’ll no doubt cover that somewhere else on the blog. This gets us to “Lemon.”

Under the influence.

Our design philosophy reflects several influences - including but not limited to - Dieter Ramms (good design is as little design as possible), Apple, Peter Blake, David Hockney, David Ogilvy, Dylan, Springsteen, McCartney, Bowie… the list goes on. The name Bitter Lemon includes a few Easter eggs (for “Lemon” see Apple and Ramms / for Bitter look up “Hockey blue”  and “The River” by Springsteen). Now we’re at “Bitter Lemon.”

The elevator pitch.

We’re not just a marketing agency or a website agency or advertising or social media; we solve problems. We figured problem-solving-agency isn’t that catchy and would be a pain in the URL so, how do we solve problems? Answer; with ideas. Thus, “Bitter Lemon Creative” was born.

Hits & history.

Bitter Lemon is still relatively new on the creative agency scene. In the beginning (2015) Bitter Lemon was a collective of skilled freelance talent coming together on a project-by-project basis. We worked with leading names in retail, hospitality and global sports. Fast forward to the post-pandemic era and the agency shifted gears; we hired our first permanent members of staff, opened out first official studio and we’ve won a few awards along the way. The future’s bright. The future’s Lemon.