It’s that time of year again where the local city centres are packed with young students beginning their university journey. We brainstormed some ways to make your student digs more homely and reflective our your personality.

We recently spent some time looking deeper into the advantages of experiential retail and why retailers need to be more flexible and adaptable in the current climate. However, this raised a pertinent issue of sustainability.

What was once a location designed to make transactional purchases is no longer the case and more and more retail brands are leaning towards “experiential retail” as a way of enticing their customers back in store.

The hospitality industry has taken a serious hit since the pandemic left it in crisis; tackling rising costs, changes in consumer behaviour, recruitment and retention of staff. But what is it about hospitality that means other industries are looking at them to lead the way and what’s trending?

We’ve recognised, even more so in the last few years, that the sectors as we used to know them have merged and the lines between hospitality, retail, workplace and leisure design are more and more blurred. This is what we love about our industry and what inspires us on a daily basis.

As designers we’re always observing; the good, the bad, the creative, and the ordinary designs that we’re exposed to every day. Recently one of our design team highlighted the topic of the young influencer community being thrust into the limelight and how the design surrounding them often appears to be a missing piece of their stardom puzzle.

Residential design is a key segment within our business, but recently one individual project has inspired the whole team, in particular Caroline who is leading the project…

This month we’re shining the spotlight on some of our residential projects and to kick it off Caroline from our team shared some inspiration and realities about her own recent home development.

It’s been an interesting time here in the Tonik office as we adapt to our new ways of working….

Café Spice Namaste is what we would describe as a project close to our hearts for so many reasons.

Cyrus and Pervin Todiwala are long standing friends of Tonik’s so when we learnt that they were about to relocate to a new premises, we were delighted to offer to lend a hand. Little did we know at that stage what an exiting and innovative project this was going to be until we caught up with the Todiwala’s son; Jamsheed.

When The Coffee Collaborative approached us to redesign their packaging we were super excited! As a team of coffee lovers working remotely during lockdown it was a great opportunity to grab a coffee, jump on a call, and brainstorm. That’s what us creatives do best, right?

When I think back to 2015 when Shiva first briefed me on the development of two new London based luxury hotels I couldn’t quite believe what an incredible opportunity we’d landed for our team – 6 years later, having surpassed the most challenging 18 months, it was a real honour to take the team back to one of these hotels to celebrate their hard work and efforts.

After a frantically exciting week of Olympic euphoria in Tokyo from Team GB, with it being the most successful start to any Summer Olympics for us, it got me thinking about the individual journey that each athlete had been on to achieve their ultimate goal - and the comparison this has in everyday life with any goal, but typically in business.

As we kickstart a new year, we’ve got some exciting news that sets us off in 2021 with a bang.

We’re delighted to announce that we’ve been awarded the prestigious title of ‘Leading multi-disciplinary design practice’ for 2021 by the BUILD Magazine.

Greenway Associates have worked with Tonik on various projects, the most notable being a £20m private residence in London. They interviewed Gary for their winter edition of The GA Journal about the year that was 2020, and what’s next.

Only a few months ago, we were asked by a good friend of ours based in Cincinnati, Ohio to help them review their business and evolve it ready for the world of high street retail. This was a brand that had been built purely online through a passion for a zero-waste lifestyle. Having gained a huge following, Rachel Felous – founder of Simply Zero – wanted to take it to the next level; onto one of the most well-known streets in the state - all in 6 weeks!

After only 2 months since launching, U-See Homes – a brand and product we created - are off to a flying start! Yesterday, they were awarded a prestigious 3rd place for Marketing Innovation 2020 at the EA Masters event, beating hundreds of other entrants.

With some of the industry’s leading experts judging the class of 2020, we are delighted that the creativity and innovation that we have infused into U-See Homes, has been rightly rewarded.

The recent Covid pandemic has brought the world to a standstill … the property market had its own challenges it needed to face in order to get back operating … Tonik formulated some strategic brainstorming sessions to build a more engaging experience. And we cracked it!

Introducing U-See Homes!

The re-purposing space is a something we are frequently asked to look at but the owners of this aged light industrial warehouse unit on the North Circular were somewhat sceptical of our ability to turn the ugliest of ducklings into a Swan, particularly given the Local Planning Policy.