#381 - AIDAN ANDERSON, Founder and Director of The Local Project
SUMMARY
This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design are joined by Aidan Anderson, Founder and Director of The Local Project to discuss how The Local Project started, growing the company, video and print publications, architecture in the media, Aidan’s background, and more. Enjoy!
ABOUT AIDAN
Aidan Anderson is the Director and Founder of The Local Project – Australia’s fastest-growing digital publication and unified media powerhouse that has revolutionized the architecture & design category.
Aidan is a visionary who turned a passion project into his life’s work. Spending his early years alongside carpenters, joiners, and builders, he developed a profound respect for the industry’s commitment to refinement and design excellence – traits which he strongly resonates with to this day. Being part of the creative journey, he was immersed in a community that was driven by conversation and the meeting of minds, sparking his entrepreneurial mindset and curiosity to create a platform where those special moments could be shared.
From the days of collaborating with 20 artisans in a small studio in Botany, Aidan now leads a team three times in size, having mastered the art of digital and social media to foster meaningful relationships between their audiences and industry experts. Driven by the prospect of success and growth both locally and internationally, he continues to hone his craft by leading and collaborating with his team of 60 editors, photographers, videographers, content specialists, business development experts, digital strategists, and more to think out of the box and challenge the traditional nature of design publishing.
Over the course of seven years after its launch in Australia, Aidan and his team have grown the brand’s following to a global audience of over 3.5 million, with expansions into New Zealand and North America, while receiving a number of industry awards in the last two years. The award-winning publication’s YouTube channel has amassed over 1 million subscribers, while their Instagram account soars to a global audience of 1.3 million. On a forward pursuit, Aidan and his team have also launched the inaugural hardcover book ‘10’ and the Emerging Design Awards program designed to celebrate young industry talent, set to shape the future of design.
For Aidan, his sights are constantly set on the horizon, believing that the best is still to come. His impressive career trajectory from a young furniture maker to an industry leader is the result of embracing both the triumphs and challenges within an evolving landscape. Operating alongside some of the country’s most established publications and media leaders with decades-backed experience, his driven mindset and fierce ambition set out to push the boundaries from the start. He continues on his path, spreading The Local Project’s philosophy and what it represents – a new generation of voices eager to tell their story.
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Aidan’s Background.
“I spent a lot of time on building sites from the age of 14 or 15. My best mate, Jesse, and I used to work for his dad who was an amazing chippy or a millworker, you guys would call it, and every summer we would work on building sites doing the worst jobs you could imagine, from lifting bricks and, and mixing mud and, and cutting four big twos. These were the best of the best homes that we were working on across Sydney and the eastern suburbs of Sydney. So my exposure to the process of construction and design and architecture started very early.” (01:21)
(07:07) Starting and growing The Local Project.
“I got a year or so into [The Local Project] and I sat myself down and looked in the mirror and I said, ‘I think I enjoy and appreciate celebrating other people's work than making my own.’ […] I was scratching my head on how to monetize a business. I remember I used to reach out to architects and makers and say, ‘Hey, for 15 bucks I’ll put up a post or something like that, and even still, people were knocking me back, left, right, and center. But, I didn't mind. I just wanted to kind of get out and meet people and understand what they were thinking.” (12:22)
(24:10) The Local Project’s videos.
(40:50) The Local Project’s print publication.
“Print is something special and something tangible that you can sit down and digest. But, there were a lot of people I told who said, 'You are bloody crazy. What are you thinking? Print is dead. It's on the way out.’ But I could just see how architects and creatives resonated with print. The leap of faith into print was another monumental moment for our business. When we released that print magazine, we went from this online blog, I guess people would consider us, to a media publisher. I think that's when we earned a lot of respect in the design industry and publishing industries because a print is incredibly hard to produce and put together. But it's again, another way to connect with your audience.” (40:53)
(49:55) The team behind The Local Project and expanding to North America.
(01:08:44) The Local Project project vetting process.
(01:19:55) Architecture in the media.
