About Rusty Monkey
What is Rusty Monkey?
Rusty Monkey is a full-service creative agency in Nottingham, England, founded in 2003. The homepage tagline reads: "We're a full service creative agency. From complex ecommerce to social media management, to bespoke illustration and 3D imaging, to content management and user experience design — we help organisations like yours achieve their goals with joined-up creative and technical solutions." Because they're full-service, the team fulfils all project requirements in-house without outsourcing.
The origin story on the about-us page is candid: "We are an agency born out of friendships, a group of misfits that wanted to have some influence and freedom and couldn't find happiness working for other people. We didn't believe in treating people as cogs in a machine. We didn't feel valued in deep hierarchical management structures. We rejected dictatorial authority. We were (relatively) poor, living in a small market town without many opportunities." Creative Director Matt Burton frames the mission verbatim: "We want to be an agency built on friendships with an unrelenting desire for us all to have influence and create work that has meaning. In many ways, that's our vision. Rusty Monkey should be a place that our younger selves wouldn't want to leave. We never wanted to work for 'the man' so we definitely don't want to be 'the man'."
Service portfolio (homepage): Branding (maxi/mini/rebranding projects, workshops), Creative Workshops (branding, marketing strategy, web brief, free 1-hour intros), Web Design (discovery, scoping, brochure, content/online marketing/members areas/B2B, ecommerce, domain & technical retainers), Ecommerce (simple, grown-up, B2B, Jamstack/headless), Online Marketing, Animation (explainer, corporate, character, social, product, how-to), Video (corporate, music, explainer, Adsmart from Sky), Photography (studio, location, event), Graphic Design & Illustration, and 3D renders. Methodology blends Agile and Waterfall to "scope into the future, but also to react quickly when things need to change."
Where will I work?
Rusty Monkey is based at SPACE 2, 2 Dakeyne Street, Nottingham NG3 2AR — in Nottingham's vibrant Creative Quarter. The about page describes the team as "a collective of cool creatives with loads of marketing and technical knowledge based in Nottingham's vibrant Creative Quarter." DB lists remote_level=hybrid with flexibility to work from anywhere; the team page's personality bios place members across the UK and beyond.
What is the Rusty Monkey team like?
Over 12 named team members on /about-us. Co-founder Chris (branding philosopher, BBC-trained camera operator) and Russ (Dev guru + Financial Director) are joined by Technical Director Tom (3D printing / Raspberry Pi enthusiast) and Creative Director Matt Burton. The wider team — Zoe (designer/snack queen), Sylvia (SEO + vegan cooking), Nick (Production Guild + SEO), Mel (writer/editor/designer), Iulia (animation/illustration/3D, Evil Scarecrow music video credits), Emma (online marketing + PR), Angelo (front-end React/NextJS), Sigita (new developer) — each have first-person bios on the team page that reveal their hobbies and quirks. The brand is intentionally informal: "We don't wear suits or fancy shoes. This is the domain of the laid-back, the casual, the scruffy and the weird."
The org structure is holacratic — verbatim from /careers: "We operate a holacratic system where management is decentralised and teams of experts (Guilds) coordinate their own workflow and development." On top of that sits an opt-in task system: "Everyone in our team is encouraged to pursue the work they most enjoy. We operate an opt-in system, where everyone chooses the tasks they want to pick up."
Work-Life Balance
Rusty Monkey runs a 4-day work week at 100% pay. Verbatim from /careers: "We're dedicated to establishing a great work/life balance for our team and giving them the time and headspace to travel, pursue their own projects, and nurture their creativity. So, we are now operating a 4 day week policy for all team members. That's work for 4 days, get paid for 5 days. Sounds good, right?"
Perks and Benefits
The live careers page doesn't publish a detailed benefits list beyond the 4-day week, holacratic structure, and casual culture framing. The team mission of "empowering people and organisations doing something Good — sustainability initiatives, charity foundations, or businesses selling really great products" is a recurring framing throughout the careers content.
Recruitment caveat (verbatim from /careers): "It's come to our attention that some scammers are impersonating us online... Let it be known that we manage our own recruitment, we don't work with recruiters, and we will never ask for any kind of payment when we recruit. Accept no imitations!"