I’m often asked where the “Bywater Properties” name came from. Guesses range from a business plan to focus on buildings with river views (a fairly niche flood plain strategy) to a long established business we took over. The truth is simpler and nearer to the second. As two impatient JLL graduates, keen to jump ship from ‘big corporate ‘and start our entrepreneurial journey, Richard Walker OBE and I wanted a name that sounded solid and established (one day perhaps even investible!) so while we bought the domain name one night over a beer in my basement flat in Peckham, the company was named (rather arbitrarily) after the road in Chelsea where Richard lived (some things haven’t changed that much!).

Beginning life as a quasi-family office, Bywater’s identity aimed to project gravitas and dependability. I think we were thinking ‘Grosvenor’ as a brand ambition. But as we grew in confidence, certainly grew in our own personal environmental awareness, we began to think about Bywater quite differently. As Richard moved back to his family business, Iceland Foods, in 2013, Bywater started on a pivot both towards development rather than secure ‘family office’ investments but also towards a focus on sustainability similar to Iceland’s high profile campaigns for the reduction of plastics and palm oil in the retail sphere.

Richard talks passionately about Iceland being a ‘Corporate Activist’, a company using its brand power to advocate for social and environmental change, which mirrors exactly how I think about Bywater’s position as a champion of low-carbon timber-led development.

But how to capture that in a brand? Having channeled ‘dependability’ and ‘establishment’ how do you move to inhabit a persona as a challenger of the status quo? We believe brand and identity is hugely important, not only for our building's, on which we take great pains as well as some risks with unique and defiant brands, but also as a corporate. But sometime small moves can make a big difference.

This isn’t a story about vast fees paid to top-flight agencies - some readers might recall the perhaps apocryphal story of ICI transitioning from black on white to blue on white (or was it the other way around – and who can even remember now!) or BA’s disastrous abandoning of the union jack in the 90s and then pivot back. This is a classic ‘Bywater’ story of finding great people, taking time and enjoyment from thinking though things carefully, and coming up with something a little different.

Ultimately, we simply tipped the name on it’s side, restacked the text in a way that perhaps makes you take a beat to engage, and played with the graphically strong W, introducing a slippage that’s become a signature mark.

But why’s that Bywater? What resonates?

I dislike the term ‘disruptor’ – vastly overused to the point of meaninglessness in a world full of change. I prefer the idea of dissonance – not a violent ‘disruption’ just a slight imbalance that makes you think twice; the hint of the unfamiliar in your comfort zone; the twist in the plot line when you thought you knew what was coming.

This is the essence for me of striving to become a Corporate Activist; working within the constraints of our industry to get things done but continually being that thorn in the side of the ‘status quo’ that gradually reposition's the ‘market standard’ around your ever-driving purpose.

That’s why I love our W – it reminds me that the slightly discordant, challenging, angular character is what we’re all about. Nudging change with a poke in the ribs if necessary.

TM