As we continue our journey, we remain dedicated to demonstrating the value of outstanding research and contributing to a future where creativity meets innovation: Molly Patton of Miscible Co.

The Silicon Review

“After hundreds of projects, I have discovered that visuals alone won’t solve the problem of communicating science. There’s an element of strategy required to ensure the right audiences are exposed to that message, engage with it, understand it, and where appropriate, take positive action.”

Miscible Co. (Miscible) is a leading production house specializing in translating complex scientific concepts into compelling multimedia content. With a diverse network of world-class professionals, Miscible offers services ranging developing technical illustrations and animation to capturing research in action on the laboratory floors.

By bridging the gap between science and creativity, Miscible facilitates the transformation of innovative ideas into tangible solutions, contributing to positive change, economic growth, and social responsibility.

Through strategic approaches and continuous innovation, Miscible aims to expand its influence across various sectors, including education, advocacy, and marketing, while shaping the future of science communication.

Miscible was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in Hawthorn East, VIC.

The Silicon Review contacted Molly Patton, founder of Miscible Co., for an interview, and here’s what she had to say.

Interview Highlights

Q. What was the motivation behind starting Miscible Co.?

The inception of Miscible is not just a business venture for me; it is a manifestation of a profound realization that unfolded during my pursuit of a master’s degree, researching novel biomaterials back in 2016. Witnessing the struggles of researchers grappling with time constraints, funding pressures and the lack of recognition for their groundbreaking work became a pivotal moment in my life.

The turning point occurred at the Australian Academy of Science celebrations; a prestigious event featuring presentations from world-renowned scientists. Despite the brilliance of their research, the presentations were lackluster; filled with uninspiring visuals (if any) that failed to showcase the significance of their work. This sparked a revelation - the gap between science and understanding lay in the presentation of the science itself.

Drawing from my background in visual arts, I began offering to enhance presentations with visually engaging elements. This evolved into Patton’d Studios, where I quickly realized science wasn’t going to be saved by prettier PowerPoints – I had to offer more! My little enterprise saw me collaborate with other freelance creatives to offer expanded services like medical and technical illustrations, branding, web development, and animation.

In a short span of time, I grew from just “me”, to a diverse network of over 20 professionals worldwide, collaborating on multimedia projects designed to connect, inspire, and encourage positive action towards transforming scientific breakthroughs into tangible solutions and thus, Patton’d Studios became Miscible. Together, we worked with prestigious academic clients, including six of The Group of Eight (Go8) universities in Australia, as well as institutions in the UK, US, and UAE.

While the results were good, the more projects we completed, the more I began to see that there was so much more we could be doing to boost the perceived value of science research in the minds of industry, government, and the broader community. I concluded that simply making beautiful media might not be enough.

The end of the COVID-19 lockdowns marked a strategic shift from being an agency-style “design hub” to looking more broadly at the entire science and technology ecosystem. I realized that clients needed help to reach the people they need to reach, so the visuals can do the job they are designed to do. And so the consultancy arm of Miscible was established to complement our creative production. It’s not exactly following the “find your niche” advice I have heard so many times before, but that’s the whole point of Miscible; we can scale, restructure and develop whatever we need to solve the problems our clients are facing.

We take pride in that versatility, completing over 150 visual communications projects since 2021 and gaining traction fast! In the last 12 months alone, we have contributed to five grant applications worth over $149M (AU) collectively, in funding and resources for crucial research and development activities across biotechnology, plastic recycling, and lifesaving wearable medical devices.

Miscible is becoming an indispensable asset to funding applications and social awareness campaigns and is considered a contributory catalyst for positive change, economic growth, innovation, and social responsibility. As we continue our journey, we remain dedicated to demonstrating the value of outstanding research and contributing to a future where creativity meets innovation.

Q. Could you provide a brief overview of your services?

Miscible supports people working on the frontiers of discovery and innovation, typically involving science and technology. Whether they are in research, manufacturing, government, or any other sector, if their work involves doing things differently, count us in. You see, Miscible specializes in presenting complex ideas as engaging and inspiring media, designed to inspire audiences into action.

The problem with working at such a novel intersection of sectors is that we often navigate the unknown, and success is defined differently depending on what our clients need to succeed. Where one project may require technical illustrations and formal documentation, another might require a fun, public-facing brand to accompany a social media campaign.

Unlike other top design houses that often focus on one particular type of design, Miscible’s purpose is to help great ideas become game-changing end products that contribute to the environment, society, and the economy in a positive way. Consequently, we must be ready to communicate any concept, using any medium, at any time.

And that’s what Miscible does.

We are a collection of the best thinkers, innovators, and disruptors who provide a full spectrum of professional services across all print and digital media formats. From branding and explainer animations to social campaigns and event collateral, we do it all - and if I may say so, we do it well!

Our clients often require a combination of these things; therefore, we bundle everything up in a fully costed, strategic roadmap that prioritizes the most impactful media and helps our clients move their innovations closer to becoming something that contributes positively to the world.

Q. Could you discuss a specific project where Miscible Co. successfully translated complex scientific concepts into compelling communications content?

There are too many options here for success stories. But if I had to choose, there’s a start-up we have been working with for some years now. They are an Australian MedTech company working to help those who are suffering from neurological diseases. They are developing an incredibly accurate seizure monitoring device designed to stop epileptic seizures before they start. It’s a remarkable piece of technology that could help a lot of people.

Obviously, MedTech is a highly competitive market when it comes to funding and investment. To help them stand out, they approached Miscible for a new-look brand identity and website.

Of course, branding is so much more than just a logo. They’re a bit like cars; they involve a quite a few moving parts – plus ongoing servicing and maintenance to make sure they’re still doing their job.

I assembled an international team spanning from Melbourne to Minnesota, to transform their identity into something inspired, impactful and more importantly, memorable to help them get to the next step in their start-up journey.

We developed a whole new neuro-inspired identity that was innovative, approachable yet still sat well within the medical technology sector. The graphics used across the brand identity were designed to reference the types of data collected by the devices they develop and mimicked the anatomical shapes and forms of the human brain.

As a company in the epilepsy space where there are numerous awareness campaigns and online communities, we leaned into that and adopted colour palettes that included shades of purple (the international colour representing epilepsy awareness) to compliment these advocacy groups and showed solidarity for their cause.

Together, these elements help provide target markets and potential investors with something visually distinctive to remember about the company and their expertise in developing treatments for epilepsy.

The impact of this re-brand took effect quickly. The start-up received $1M from the BioMedTech Horizons funding pool. This enabled them to bring on engineers to optimize their flagship technology and get one step closer to predicting and preventing epileptic seizures. They also received a Eureka Award nomination – a coveted recognition of trailblazing science and technology here in Australia – opportunities to talk about their work on national radio and present at TEDx in Sydney.

They have now just been awarded pre-seed investment to support commercial development and pre-clinical activities as they move closer toward in-human studies and closer to seeing a functional cure for epilepsy on the market helping millions of people worldwide.

Q. What strategies does Miscible Co. employ to ensure that its visual media consistently communicates compelling stories to the right audience?

After hundreds of projects, I have discovered that better visual representation of research alone won’t solve the larger problems faced by the science and technology sector. There’s an element of strategy required to ensure the right audiences are exposed to that message, engage with it, understand it, and where appropriate, take positive action.

This requires more than just great-looking media and some clever copy. It requires a deep understanding of business operations, brand strategy, marketing and sales. It’s a bit like an iceberg; what you see above the waterline, is the visual media we produce, but there is a whole lot going on beneath the surface that supports those visuals and sets them up to succeed. Without those foundations, we are never going to have the impact we could, and our clients are not going to achieve the results they want within reasonable timeframes (if at all). Without these processes, there’s nothing to ensure the media we create is used in to right way, or in a consistent manner over time which jeopardizes its ability to do what we designed it to do.

Seeing this, I have built Miscible’s network to include strategists and consultants (including myself), who can help clients get the fundamentals right, before we engage in any kind of creative production. Sometimes this is hard for clients to hear, but it would be remiss of us not to paint the full picture so they can make an informed decision about the results they want out of their time with us, and which ultimately determines what we do, and how we do it.

Since implementing these strategies, we are seeing significant shift in numbers across clients smashing their goals and KPIs, but also in Miscible’s revenue and client retention rates.

The more success stories we have, the more compelling our case is for others to follow suit and allow us to look a little deeper at the barriers they are coming up against and work with them to hurdle those obstacles and attract the opportunities they need to succeed.

Q. Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

Yes! We are constantly evolving our “offer” to remain the go-to option for our clients as their needs evolve. This year, there has been a specific focus on grant funding amongst both our academic and industry clients.

We noticed the trend and developed a beta offer that we advertised via our contacts within our client’s respective organisations which are distributed internally. This 12-month trial has proven successful so far, with Miscible media contributing to five grants - all of them successful and worth a total value of $149M (AU) in funding and resources.

During this test period, we developed and refined Miscible’s processes to streamline the production of these visuals. This involved calculating a more accurate price range that was flexible enough to handle any curveballs, but also not so broad that spawned uncertainty amongst clients.

With the stakes on these projects being so high, it is vital that the Miscible network is well-versed in the expectations before they commence the process. I used my own knowledge of, and experience with Australia’s funding programs to educate a select group of illustrators on the specific criteria required for grant media to be accepted as part of the application process. This may seem like a very granular detail, but the consequences of not meeting media criteria can be immediate disqualification from the application process, and vital research not receiving the funding it needs to continue.

We are delighted with the results this beta launch new service offer has delivered for Miscible’s revenue, the professional development of the creative network and, of course, the results for our clients.

Looking towards the upcoming funding rounds, Miscible will be advertising this service more broadly, including internationally and use it as an access point to leverage our other services where we feel they may help our clients.

Q. What does the future hold for your company and its customers? Are exciting things on the way?

Oh, so many things! Because science communication is undergoing such a refashioning, with no big-hitting trailblazers like you would see in other industries, there’s so much freedom for myself and others running sci-comm businesses to build whatever we want, however we want.

This presents an incredibly rare opportunity to look at other industries and see what they are doing, the quality of work they are producing and the results they are getting and finding ways to adopt and adapt elements from each, to build this growing sci-comm landscape into something truly original and innovative.

For Miscible, this warrants the need to un-niche its services to serve a boarder purpose and grow beyond media production and into areas like education, advocacy, and consulting – even media distribution. Each of these arms give science a technology voice in different ways and gradually we build a symphony of understanding in ways that upholds the integrity of the science, whilst presenting information in ways that keep it accessible, understandable, and memorable across a far more diverse range of audiences than if we simply continued along the same siloed path.

Molly Patton, Founder