This week, HM turns 30. We have been thinking about a lot. Cheers to another year, another decade. There is plenty to celebrate. But it’s not business as usual in this era. It can’t be.

We are doing our work in a world carrying enormous pain, uncertainty and division. To talk only about our own success, without acknowledging the wider world, wouldn’t feel true to us.

At the same time, reaching 30 years gives us reason to reflect honestly on what it has taken to keep going.

We have experienced almost everything business ownership can throw at you: wins, losses, resistance, criticism, difficult years and moments that required more optimism than evidence.

And still, what an extraordinary privilege HM has been for us.

It has given us work, purpose, relationships, freedom, a home for our ideas and a way to support our family and many others.

We are not the owners of our achievements. We are responsible for what they make possible.

That sense of responsibility has always shaped how we work.

We listen before we assume. We take the time to understand what sits beneath the brief. We push beyond the expected when the work asks for courage. We turn ideas into action. And we stay invested in the people and relationships long after the work is delivered. If you are a client, you know this to be true.

Through every stage, one principle connects it all:

HANDLE WITH CARE

Because every brief carries something important: a reputation, a livelihood, a community, a culture, an ambition or a story that deserves to be properly understood.

Care means paying attention, and thinking deeply. It also means challenging what is not working, and understanding the impact of what we create.

We started HM in 1996, in a completely different era. It almost feels like another world.

There was no social media asking us to perform our success. No constant stream of comparison. No expectation that every achievement should become content.

We were also less exposed to the state of the world than we are now. Today, its realities arrive in front of us constantly. It is harder, and perhaps less true to us, to separate our work from the wider context in which we are doing it. That awareness changes the questions we ask: what are we creating, who does it serve and where can our skills be used well?

There have been wonderful highlights: work we remain proud of, clients who have placed enormous trust in us, people whose livelihoods HM has supported, recognition from our industry and a business that helped us raise our family and build a life around our ideas.

But many of the most important wins were quieter.

Getting through a difficult week. Winning work when we needed it. Seeing an idea become real. Having the right person call at the right time. Being surrounded by people who genuinely care. Building our own advisory circle of people who tell us the truth, remind us who we are and want to see us do well.

We have learned to notice those wins. To write them down. To recognise progress while we are living it, rather than waiting for some distant version of success before allowing ourselves to feel proud.

The world is uncertain, but we are not powerless.

We cannot solve everything. But we can focus our skills. We can decide what deserves our attention, who we want beside us and what kind of contribution HM can make.

This anniversary gives us a reason to look back with gratitude, but we are far more interested in what comes next. New offers, new tools, new ways to help organisations use strategy, communication and creative thinking to find clarity, communicate with confidence and put good thinking into practice.

Not as though nothing has changed because everything has.

We step into HM’s next chapter with optimism, self-belief, good people around us and a clearer sense of where our skills, energy and opportunities can be used well.

Image: HANDLE WITH CARE.
Hand-cut paper, HM identity and packaging tape on board, 2026. By HM.

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Published by Nancy Bugeja, CEO, HM and editor-in-chief, Fluoro.