Birmingham City Council were building the UK’s largest public library, a £193 million capital project. With the meteoric rise of ebooks, podcasts and audio books and with players like Amazon (the Kindle and Audible), Starbucks (and other places providing free internet), Apple (podcasts) and Goodreads providing (arguably) competitive services REMIX Agency were asked to help the leadership team reimagine the public library to better meet the needs of today’s users and become more financially sustainable.

We designed and fully costed a multi-layered customer journey and commercial strategy including catering, space, retail and digital concepts.

The customer experience was developed in part through introductions and pitches for innovative partnerships with private sector organisations.

Major capital projects like this are rare, but the challenge of evolving public services is constant if we are to provide ongoing value for money. Imagining the future, executing on the detail and developing staff are core elements of this. Similarly, customer journeys should cater for a seamless mix of cultural and commercial objectives.

REMIX became a part of the core delivery team as innovation consultants for a period of 2-years through to the successful opening of the project which became one of the Top 5 most visited UK cultural institutions in it’s first year with over 4 million visitors ahead of organisations such as the V&A, Natural History Museum and National Gallery.