Robert Thompson’s Craftsmen, renowned globally as 'The Mouseman of Kilburn', has been England's finest creator of hand-carved, traditional oak furniture for 130 years.

With the encroachment of furniture brands across digital, and an imperative to engage new generations of customers, it was time for the brand to reposition itself through a new website and impactful storytelling strategy to secure the Mouseman legacy for the future.

Some stories speak for themselves and it is a matter of making them come alive for audiences. After running The Story Method process with the team, we unpacked and explored the incredible history that comprises this classic British brand, distilling them into themes and narratives that could be put into action.

Centred around a long-form film and feature TREE TO TABLE: The Making of a Mouseman, we put these stories at the heart of a website and brand redesign, conceiving a change in tone, style, voice and producing all content and copywriting.

A story like no other

Few brands are genuinely (and recognisably) part of the fabric of Britain. Mouseman is perhaps the finest hand-crafted, English oak furniture maker in the world, with its work appearing everywhere from Westminster Abbey to Michelin-starred restaurants.

UNTOLD prioritised repositioning the brand around these incredible stories, while simultaneously bringing audiences into the workshop to absorb the brand's aura and witness the craft, skills, materials and expertise that goes into every Mouseman.

Discovering buried treasure

Part of the challenge was finding a way to condense the wealth of stories the brand has. Working collaboratively with the family, we conceived a dynamic and image-rich timeline section of the website that condensed the stories into short-form excerpts and dates, unearthing many hidden treasures that people working at the brand didn’t know.

This was the show don’t tell approach of The Story Method in practice: a scroll through time that rooted the brand in 130 years of history and in its home of Kilburn, Yorkshire.