Celebrating the creative spirit [Sponsored Content]
by Kimberly Whitelaw and Maranda Mitchell
We’re Kimberly Whitelaw and Maranda Mitchell, founders of Whitelaw Mitchell – a boutique creative agency specialising in brand design, website development and strategic creative ideas.
As with all great duos, it’s about being complimentary, not the same. Kim hails from Edinburgh, studious and detail-oriented, Maranda a native of California, brings creative flare and confidence. A relationship founded on trust, a core value held at the forefront of everything we do.
Our process, values and tone-of-voice is like a straight shot of espresso – full of energy and definitely an acquired taste. We understand we aren’t for everyone, but it’s precisely why our clients are attracted to us. We’ve remained small on purpose, it provides us with the ability to work directly with passionate business owners and decision-makers to create beautiful, thoughtful and transformational work. Working with like-minded people and founders is our first priority of business. Chemistry is the most important element of a fruitful partnership. Getting to know each other with open minds and open hearts helps foster the necessary connection to make professional and creative alchemy.
We feel very lucky that our partnership has gifted us the opportunities and lifestyle to do what we love day to day. But that doesn’t mean we don’t thrive on taking risks. They say that everything you want is on the other side of fear, so we don’t like to get too comfortable, and we’ll never be content. It’s not how we grow. Our theory is: if it’s 50% terrifying and 50% exciting then we’re onto something good. So, in the spirit of risk-taking and creative growth, we ventured into a second, slightly more boozy business.
In 2021, we launched Limited Label, a boutique and exclusive botanical gin. With a saturated market, it was one of our biggest creative challenges to stand out from the crowd and use our career experience to differentiate our product and provide a truly unique experience for our customers.
Our concept is “the creative spirit”. It’s gin and it’s art, for lovers of both. We commission independent Kiwi artists to create a distinctive piece of art that is printed on our gin bottle. Each bottle is signed, numbered, and highly collectable; limited to only 300 bottles per artist edition. We collaborated with master distiller, Ben Leggett, who is no stranger to the world of gin. His own brand of gin, Roots, has recently been awarded the title of “Best London Dry Gin” at the World Spirit Awards. Our creative collab produced a smooth, premium gin with expressive aromatics that illuminate angelica and coriander on the nose and lifted iris root flower over an earthy backbone. A gin made to sip neat, and that’s how we like it.
We have already released two Issues with Issue 03 in development. Issue 01 showcases the work of Wellington-based artist Ash “Chimp” Sisson, capturing the essence of a moment when two souls connect. Issue 02 features the creative mind of Littleton-based artist Jonny Waters, delving into the nuances of high and low art and exploring what art means to the eye of its beholder. We believe in using gin to sell art, not art to sell gin, creating a brand all about the artist, their story and their work, providing a magical recipe of creativity both inside and outside the bottle.
As entrepreneurs, we appreciate the effort it takes to balance kids, dogs, friends, home life and paying the bills, so we work hard to celebrate women in business (and in life) every chance we can.
