2025: Our favourite cultural moments

Rather than writing a typical end-of-year round-up, or reviewing the most successful charity campaigns over the past 12 months, we thought we’d take a look back at three of the most significant cultural moments of 2025 – and how they helped shape our work.

From left to right: Every Rose: Our time, Maybe it’s bipolar? Duke of Edinburgh

Winning the Women’s Rugby World Cup

Women’s sport is currently booming – and about time, too. After the Lionesses’ success in the European Championship, winning for the second time in 2025, expectations were high for the England Women’s rugby team, aka the Red Roses, in the World Cup. Having made it to the last six finals, could we win it on home soil?

Here in the Lark Studio, we were particularly invested in their progress. A few weeks before the tournament began, we began working with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) on its women and girls’ action plan. Our brief was to transform an internal planning document into a dynamic, public-facing strategy that would excite fans, brands, schools, clubs, players and policy makers.

We wanted to tell the story, from playground to podium, and set out England Rugby’s goals for the future. But how do you tell a success story when the greatest success (or heartbreaking failure) could be just days away? As we wrote the copy, sourced images and designed pages, there was one statistic we left blank. And as we learned more about the growing support for women and girls’ rugby, on and off the field, we crossed everything that the Red Roses wouldn’t fail.

When the final whistle blew, we felt immensely proud. We filled in that missing stat – a new World Cup win – and the five-year action plan was ready to go. Lark director Paul attended the launch of Every Rose: Our Time and was awestruck by the sense of optimism and excitement now surrounding the future of women and girls’ rugby. 

Hayley Powell, strategy lead – Women’s Game at the RFU, says, “Working with Lark on the design and creation of our Women and Girls Action Plan was a fantastic experience. The team was incredibly flexible, helpful, and patient throughout. They also adapted to tight timelines without compromising on quality.

“We truly valued Lark’s collaborative and professional approach, and are delighted with the final result.” We’re sure she means the strategy and not the World Cup win…

Heston Blumenthal examines the impact of bipolar

In June, Heston Blumenthal starred in a BBC documentary about living with bipolar. The six Michelin-starred chef revealed his diagnosis in 2024, but the new documentary was an in-depth look at how the highs of his condition may have helped him achieve his success – and if he could have done it without them.

It was the first time many people got to see how bipolar affects every aspect of someone’s life and understand more about the disorder. Heston explained how the high episodes fuelled his “creative chaos” but as his manic periods became more extreme, the depressive lows also got worse. He’s now taking the right medication and says he sees bipolar as part of what makes him uniquely ‘him’.

For us, the documentary was particularly insightful as we had just begun to create a new awareness campaign for Bipolar UK. The charity wanted to reach people who may have bipolar but were not aware of their condition. They asked us to look at the often-overlooked ‘up’ symptoms, such as impulsive shopping sprees. 

We developed a few concepts for the campaign, and the chosen route was a series of social media ads. Each one focused on a different symptom and nudged people to take an online quiz if they recognised any of those behaviours in themselves.

When the campaign launched, it resonated with so many people – the comments under the ads showed we had got the style and tone exactly right, which was incredibly rewarding. Just like Heston, many people had been unaware their behaviour was due to bipolar and were delighted this campaign could help others now in their position. 

The feedback we received from the team at Bipolar UK was also lovely. Nayeem Alam, senior marketing officer at Bipolar UK, says, “From the very first meeting, Lark went above and beyond to understand bipolar and what we were setting out to achieve. Throughout the creative process, the team was sensitive, curious and easy to work with. They asked the right questions and helped us focus on what really mattered. 

“The assets they delivered speak directly to our target audience and their work will help us reach the estimated 500,000 people in the UK living with undiagnosed bipolar, and help them get the support they deserve.”

Adolescence and getting kids off screens

The Netflix drama Adolescence had a huge impact on audiences in the UK and around the world. The story of a 13-year-old boy who was sucked into the world of online misogyny – with disastrous consequences – sparked debates about online safety, toxic male role models and how to get kids off their screens.

At the same time, Lark was developing a new awareness campaign for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (DofE). In fact, one theme that came out of our discovery work was a concern about the amount of time young people spend online and how DofE could rival the attraction of social media. 

Ultimately, our project brief was to raise awareness that DofE is a charity – as some people mistakenly believe the organisation is funded by government grants or the Duke of Edinburgh himself. But it wasn’t enough for people just to know they are a charity; we also wanted to show the benefits the DofE scheme can have on the lives of children and young people.

So, we thought about all the things DofE stands for: empowerment, getting outside, boosting confidence, learning life-long skills and building friendships. And we wanted to show young people feeling secure in who they are and what they believe in.

We took all this and came up with a bold, punchy campaign to convey the sense of resilience and exhilaration that doing DofE inspires in young people.

At a time when many people were worrying about ‘what to do’ with young people, and young men in particular, we were able to highlight an incredible charity that had been doing something positive for years – and the fact they are needed now more than ever.

We’re really proud of the campaign and hope more young people now sign up to DofE in the pursuit of self-confidence instead of selfies.