Open Studio #6: Lee Weaver Started at Vogue. Now He Builds "Unfair Advantages" for a Living.

Open Studio is a brand new podcast about what the creative industry's actually like. For the people in it, the people near it and the people still working out whether to jump in.

Doesn't usually end with "brand strategist in Liverpool." Lee Weaver's did.

In episode six of Open Studio, the Co-Founder of One May talks us through 15-plus years in design, why he calls his own work an "unfair advantage," and why he and his co-founder deliberately kept the studio small enough to stay hands-on.

Lee Weaver began his career as an intern at Vogue, before working his way through a run of senior design roles. In 2022 he co-founded One May, a brand design studio based in Liverpool, where his stated aim is building "unfair advantages" for ambitious brands where clients range from small start-ups to global organisations.

In a crowded market, Lee's view is blunt: if your brand doesn't say something specific, it doesn't say anything at all.

• Differentiation: a distinct brand statement is what stops you disappearing into a crowded market.
• Connection: the right audience doesn't respond to noise, they respond to something meaningful said clearly.
• Clarity: a sharp statement doesn't just describe your business, it makes the next decision easier.

Lee and co-founder Martin made a deliberate call to keep One May small rather than scale it up. For Lee, staying close to the actual design work is the point of running the studio at all.

• Stay in the work. Being hands-on means the vision that started the studio actually makes it into the final output.
• Collaborate on purpose. A small team only works if everyone's actively building off each other, not just dividing tasks.
• Strategy and design aren't separate jobs. The strongest brand messages come from combining both, not handing strategy to one person and design to another.

Lee's own path started with formal design education, and he's not dismissive of it just because other routes exist.

• Use it as a sandbox. Education is the lowest-stakes place to experiment before client money is on the line.
• The relationships outlast the coursework. Peers and mentors from your studies often matter more, longer, than any single module.
• Internships turn theory into employability. Real-world experience during study is what actually gets you hired after it.

• Say something specific, not something safe. A brand statement with a clear point of view beats one that tries to please everyone.
• Resist scaling for its own sake. Bigger isn't automatically better if it pulls you out of the actual work.
• Treat design education as a testing ground. Use the low-stakes years to experiment before the client stakes get high.

Open Studio, made at Shillington. Episode 06, listen here.