Strumming the perfect branding melodies in UK(2)

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 degreefrom 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 egrets."