SINGAPORE — When the founders of creative agency Splash Productions were looking for a bigger office to accommodate their growing team three years ago, they came across a sprawling 6,000-square-feet warehouse behind Jalan Besar Stadium.

It was clearly way too large for the 15-strong company, but the luxury of space — and the physical and creative freedom that accompanied it — was too great to resist.

“We argued over whether this was the right place, but one thing all agreed on is that the environment would make a lot of difference to our creative standards. It would allow us to liberate ourselves, so we took a leap,” said Mr Terry Lee, 44, the company’s co-founder and Managing Director.

They signed a five-year lease — a de facto time-frame to grow their business to fit the space — and set out to create a working environment that would bring out the best in their staff. Three years on, it turns out that the move was a catalyst for the company’s next stage of growth.

The space now holds around 30 staff working on design and branding projects on print, digital and video platforms. Their clients range from government agencies to schools and food-and-beverage chains.

The open-concept space contains a pool table and table tennis table, and features custom-made furniture that serves as a reminder of its industrial roots. On the glass wall of a meeting room, a mural of an octopus from a ’80s Nintendo hand-held game adds another touch of nostalgia, as well as a dose of fun.

“We wanted no partitions so that everyone could see and talk to everyone else. At the same time we wanted to preserve the character of the space, which used to be a warehouse,” said Mr Jerome Lau, another co-founder and the firm’s Account Director.

Added Mr Lee: “We describe it as industrial chic.”

The company currently has six shareholders, with Mr Lee and Mr Lau spearheading the business aspects of the operations.

The birthplace of Splash in 2005 was a far cry from its current environment. Founded by five former colleagues at another design agency, Splash’s first office was an 800-sq-ft unit shared with another firm. Three months later, they moved into a 1,000-sq-ft shophouse unit, then a 1,200-sq-ft space in Bukit Merah View in 2008.

“Even though the space was much smaller, we enjoyed the freedom of doing what we liked together. We loved that feeling of being liberated and we reciprocated by doing quality work for our clients,” said Mr Lee.

Starting with work referred by friends and industry acquaintances, the company hit its first high-profile project doing branding work such as newsletters and brochures for Dempsey Hill.

“In the beginning we did a lot of one-off projects, it was very transactional. But we wanted to move towards building long-term relationships with our clients,” said Mr Lau.

Their most successful example to date is their work for Artease Cafe, a relationship that began six months before the launch. Splash handled all aspects of the client’s marketing and branding, which evolved as the cafe expanded to four outlets across Singapore, and later attracted overseas franchisees.

The team that worked on Artease utilised the agency’s full range of skills, from print and photography to advertising and video. The co-founders put their success down to an ability to understand the needs of the client and the ability to balance that insight with their own creative urges.

Their proudest single piece of work so far is a short film about the need to give Singaporean children a balanced lifestyle. Created for arts school Kids’ Gallery, it turned into a passion project for the team, who chose to underwrite the additional costs incurred by the project after it busted the client’s budget.

Going forward, the team is looking to snare more large integrated campaigns. To broaden their repertoire of services, they are on the verge of finalising a deal to take a stake in public relations firm The Advocate Group.

But the longer-term goal is to take on the heavy hitters of the advertising industry and prove that a young local start-up can hold its own against multinational companies. What they see as their advantage is their ability to tap into the Singapore psyche, a local connection that international competitors may find difficulty replicating.

“We want to go up against the bigger boys. We are all very local, we went through the Singapore school system, buying the HDB flat, doing National Service. We want to do Singapore proud,” said Mr Lee.