Piano man who joined the brand band

Clear communication, with large doses of color and fun, has become Ben Hui's instrument of choice

When pianist Ben Hui gave up his music career to start a marketing agency in 2010, he was venturing into a new field as a one-man band.

Since then his company, Language Brand Communication, has worked with dozens of big names including Airport City Manchester, NBA Global Games, Imperial College London, UK Trade & Investment and the UK's National Health Service, and it employs six people.

Sitting in his office in Old Trafford, Manchester, Hui, 36, points to project photos on his wall, all of which have a colorful, artistic air.

"As a company we don't chase money," he says. "We chase things that stimulate us and things that are meaningful. We provide quality work, so clients come to us."

One recent project the company worked on created a redevelopment plan for an NHS health center in Knowsley, near Liverpool, in the hope of transforming the health center into a welcoming environment for members of the public.

"The overarching aim of the project was to let the community feel the health center is a part of their community, rather than the government trying to build something and say, 'You people use it'," Hui says.

Working with the local youth council, Language created a clear pathfinding system in which color-coded wood arrows point patients, doctors and others in different directions.

In the health center, the Language team also hung on the ceiling a big sculpture created mainly using light bulbs filled with colored sand by local children.

"So the kids went to the health center and pointed at the light bulbs to say, 'I made that one,' so they feel involved with the building," he says.

Another project is "DNA", an artwork outside an NHS health center in Kirkby, also near Liverpool, where the wooden letters DNA had circular holes in them and each child drew a picture to be seen through the holes.

Some of the company's projects have a China focus. One is the 800-million-pound ($1.3 billion; 956 million euros) Airport City Manchester project, for which the Chinese firm Beijing Construction Engineering Group will complete half the building work.

In June, Airport City Manchester's development team traveled around China on its first international road show, visiting Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, with more than 200 delegates attending to find out more, and Language was given the task of marketing the road show through Chinese social media.

Language's client base covers many companies that invest in China, and student accommodation that targets Chinese international students.

Although Language says it finds it difficult to recruit China-based clients, it has taken time to share insights on branding in Chinese through its website, in the hope of educating Chinese companies about the power of branding so they may eventually become clients.

The insights Language has analyzed include the story of the London Underground map design and Cambridge Satchel, a creative student-style bag brand now popular among Chinese shoppers.

"We hope by continuing to do this Chinese companies can see the power of branding and understand what we do," Hui says.

"It's quite a lot of work on our part but we feel it's something we would enjoy anyway."

Hui was born and educated in Hong Kong, graduating in 2001 with an English Literature degree from Hong Kong Baptist University. He then completed a master's degree at the University of Leeds, studying piano, which led him on to a piano MPhil (master of philosophy) at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, one of the best music schools in the UK. The experience acquainted him with Manchester, a city that eventually became his home.

He recalls his career at the time to be one driven by his passion for the instrument, but making ends meet was difficult. After graduating from the Royal Northern, Hui started regularly giving public performances, which required weeks of practice at a time.

For the rest of the time, Hui taught piano at schools, community centers and other locations every day of the week, often for a whole day at a time, which usually involved a lot of driving.

After a few years he found the routine was taking a toll on his health, and started thinking about other ways of earning a living. His eagerness to find something new was intensified by a bad car accident during work. "I felt that if I started a business things would be more in control," he says.

Earlier, after graduating from Royal Northern in 2004, he had set up a booking agency for special occasions called Your Event Musicians. Hui matched musicians and bands with those organizing weddings or other special events, but the company did not run for long.

What eventually evolved into Language in 2010 was a network that Hui started that gathered creative ideas called CING Network, which stands for Creative Industries Networking Group.

At the time, Hui completed a short course provided by the Creative Industries Development Service, which gives young creative industry entrepreneurs direction and advice. Hui met many likeminded creative industry talents during the workshops, and they started CING together.

The group grew to have about 1,900 members, and soon he decided to turn it into a more conventional business called CING Studio, and later it was turned into Language Brand Communication.

Looking back at his journey, Hui says his career path was not planned from the outset but everything that happened has contributed to make him who he is.

"I spent three years doing English, four years as a concert musician and now I'm doing something completely different. So a lot of people say I've wasted this time, but I've found my path and know what I'm doing. I enjoyed it and have no regrets."

cecily.liu@chinadaily.com.cn