We recently chatted with Salt and Sister Studio founders, sisters Heidi and Halah El-Kholy, to find out what led to set up in business and start a design studio during lockdown. We discuss their careers so far and how combining over 10 years’ experience in copywriting, marketing, events, branding, illustration, and design, means they can tackle any client brief. They particularly love creating dynamic and unique visual identity projects and tell DbyW: ‘we’ve combined our skillset to do what we love the most: crafting, cultivating and elevating brand identities’.
Can you tell us a bit about your background and careers before founding Salt and Sister Studio?
Heidi: For the last twelve-odd years, I’ve been in and out of the venn-diagram of events, hospitality, and marketing industries – with a couple of stints teaching English as a second language. During uni (English lit and Drama can you tell?) I worked in boujie London venues, followed in JLo’s footsteps and planned weddings before going into events and business development for restaurants. After that, I worked for an international events agency; my last formal ‘job-job’ was as account manager for a digital marketing agency before I was made redundant in October 2020.
These different roles all contributed to an ability to genuinely connect with and empathise with our clients, and being able to interpret their brief, something I think we do really well at S&S. I also do some freelance writing for food account EatMCR, as I can’t seem to stop eating or writing.
“These different roles all contributed to an ability to genuinely connect with and empathise with our clients, and being able to interpret their brief, something I think we do really well at S&S.”
Halah: It’s been a journey! I’ve got a degree in Illustration but had absolutely no idea how to translate that into commercial work-work because I graduated at a time when having a ‘personal brand’ was a bit gross and everything was a bit more analogue. I was interning at random small agencies, but not really getting anywhere (in hindsight, WHY would an illustrator even intern?!) and balancing some bar work. After that started taking over, I left and retrained in graphic design at Shillington College. After some more time interning, I found an in-house design job at a small company, but ultimately it wasn’t very fulfilling – there’s only so much tea a lady can take.
Why did you decide to start a studio together?
So, lockdown, amiright? Halah ended up with a lot of free time on her hands and a sister that was freshly made redundant. We did a few trial projects together for our friends’ ‘Big Ideas’, which was great to see because once the world stopped, everyone finally had the break from routine to think about what they actually want to do, and these are the people we want to work with and help! We realised that we worked disgustingly well together, and we decided to make Salt and Sister an actual thing!
“We realised that we worked disgustingly well together, and we decided to make Salt and Sister an actual thing!”
Where did the name Salt and Sister Studio come from and what is your studio ethos?
There are so many different reasons we went with Salt and Sister! Sisterhood in a wider community sense, femininity, empowerment, and a little bit (okay, very) extra…
Salty because our lived and professional experience has been a minefield of staying quiet and compliant in order to assimilate into problematic working environments – usually as the only POC in the workplace. In starting S&S, the most exciting thing for us is that we get to do what we love, unbothered and unhindered by the toxicity of rigid white-male-centred workplaces.
Because of all this, our studio ethos is one of collaboration, integrity and creating brands that are ‘anti-bland’. The idea that we have the autonomy to be able to say ‘no, we don’t want to work with you because your ethos is exploitative and perpetuates harmful things, like toxic diet culture/whitewashing ethnic practices etc.’ is so invaluable, it’s something we don’t take for granted. We don’t have to (hopefully) ever work with arseholes again, and that is so liberating it makes the fear of going freelance worth it.
“We don’t have to (hopefully) ever work with arseholes again, and that is so liberating it makes the fear of going freelance worth it.”
We’re big fans of your studio branding. Can you tell us about the process that you went through to create it and where you found inspiration?
Thanks so much! After all the uber-commercial work we’d been doing, we wanted to do something more ‘us’ than the usual minimalist portfolio website. We sat down and talked about the kind of vibe we wanted, which we agreed was playful, beautiful and impactful, that didn’t detract from the client work. Because we love a good fruit sticker, we included these reinterpretations of our colours and logo to showcase our different influences, like arabic art, cartoons and typography. Down to the pink and red colour combo, every bit of the studio branding represents our background, upbringing and heritage, and personal taste.
It was important to us to share how we can interpret and reinterpret a brand, extending and playing around with it, while still maintaining a cohesive identity – what better place to show that than with our own branding?
“We’re unapologetically feminine and this comes through in our website and socials – it can be off-putting to some people but we don’t mind because we want to work with people who agree that you can be fun and ‘girly’ and also professional af.”
We also love your project Little Lies Vintage. Can you tell us a bit more about your creative approach and the thought process behind this project?
LLV is a concept Heidi thought of in 2012 when she was living in London and thrift shopping most days on her lunch break. After years of it just cropping up in conversation, we knew it was going to be one of the first concepts we could explore with S&S as it combines both our copywriting and design skills.
Little Lies is a playful, pantomime take on the idea of vintage clothes being a humblebrag at parties. Imagine if you could really impress, and say that your silver-tasselled cowboy jacket was actually the first of its kind to be launched in space in 1967?
In terms of the look, there’s nothing we love more than an unbothered woman living her best life, so this was a no-brainer. We combined neoclassical art and architectural touches with vibrant neons to create a playful, sassy aesthetic that complements the tongue-in-cheek brand tone. Because the whole brand concept is built on a bed of lies, we highlighted the asterisk and incorporated the ‘this isn’t a true fact’ disclaimer as a main feature.
“It’s basically pretty-with-a-punch.”
We’re really happy with it so it’s so nice to hear you love it!
What does the next five years hold for you both?
Growing and growing. Growing our network and community; growing our skillset together; personal growth and learning to navigate the fun things that come with going freelance, like imposter syndrome (a term we hate but is all too real). It’s all really exciting and scary, but I don’t think we can imagine going back.
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Design Agency:
Salt and Sister Studio
Founders:
Location:
Manchester, UK
Founded:
2020
Services:
- Brand Identity
- Art Direction
- Copy Writing
- Illustration
- Digital Design
- Packaging
Article by Mary Hemingway
Founder : DesignbyWomen.