Creative Capes

What is the key to rapid growth? When is it time to expand your team? How should you approach a global expansion?  In this episode of Agency Growth Stories, Natalie Graeme, Co-Founder of Uncommon – Europe’s fastest-growing start-up in advertising history, answers these questions and more, as she shares her experience of growing Uncommon from 0 to over 200 employees, working with global brand partn...

How do you grow from 6 to 1000 people? From £0 to £232 in revenue? When is it time to step down as CEO? Steve Bell, former Iris Co-Founder, and now CEO at Team17 Group managed over 1000 employees in 14 offices around the world and oversaw Iris' work with some of the biggest, most creatively driven and technologically advanced global brands.  Here is what we covered in the second episode of Age...

How do you design a fail-proof hiring process? How do you balance purpose and profit in the early days? And how do you find your first clients? Get your answer in our first episode of Agency Growth Stories – a series where we talk to the founders of the world's leading agencies about what's on every founder's mind. Our first guest was the wonderful Abi Freeman — Co-Founder of Brink — a...

Without any computers or a bank loan, Stuart Trevor launched his first collection at the age of 28, reaping £1.5M. Today, the founder and former CEO of AllSaints has three successful brands under his wing, loved by the likes of Beyonce, Gwen Stefani, and Justin Timberlake. Join us for our third episode of Creative Legends to hear all about how Stuart made it and what fashion was like before Zara....

Maria Giudice founded the iconic design agency Hot Studio and sold it to Facebook after an unexpected chat with Mark Zuckerberg. Now, Maria shares the top lessons from her time at the media giant, running her own agency and teaching leaders to embrace creativity for maximum success. Join us for our second episode of Creative Legends, the series where we talk to creative industry icons, and get ins...

How can creative leaders thrive? And how does AI come into play? John Maeda is here to answer your pressing questions. In our first episode of Creative Legends, the series where we talk to creative industry icons, we interviewed Microsoft’s VP of Design and AI. He shared his lessons on how to be a great leader, become an excellent communicator and navigate design in the age of AI.  𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗝𝗢𝗛𝗡 John...

In our last episode of this Design Leadership series, we talked to Tiffany Rolfe, Mom & Global Chief Creative Officer at R/GA. Tiffany shared insights on how to stay relevant in an ever-changing industry, fight imposter syndrome, step out of your comfort zone, get to a C-level position as a Creative and the skills you need to become a successful Chief Creative Officer while also being a parent...

In our fourth episode of Design Leadership webinars, we talked to Kate Stanners, Global Chairwoman & Global Chief Creative Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi. She has played a key role in the transformation of the agency post the acquisition of the digital agency Outside Line, successfully combining digital, social and design into the creative offering. She has won numerous awards for clients in...

In our third episode of our Design Leadership webinars, we talked to Josh W Higgins, VP, Executive Creative Director for Atlassian leading multi-disciplined Creative, Design, Ops and Production teams who work across all consumer touch points. Previously, Josh was the Global Chief Creative Officer for Reality Labs at Meta and Design Director for President Obama’s 2012 historic political campaign. J...

In our second episode of Design Leadership webinars, we talked to the wonderful Fede Garcia, Global Chief Creative Officer at PR agency BCW Global. Fede shared insights on how to motivate teams to create bold ideas, what is the future of advertising, how cancel culture influenced creativity, what it means to be creative and what are the main qualities of a good leader. For more leadership insights...

In this interview, Justine Lançon, CCO at modern jewellery brand Mejuri, will share everything you need to know about being a Chief Creative Officer. What does it mean to be a creative leader? How Mejuri branding was created? What qualities and skills do you need to grow from the creative director to CCO? How to build and hire a design team?    For more leadership insights check our Exec...

Our fourth guest in our Leadership Series was Sinead Keenan, Business Psychologist at SpencerStuart – a global leadership consultancy firm with 57 offices in over 30 countries. We discussed what are the future skills Business Leaders need to have. Sinead also gave advice on how to find your purpose and how to give and receive feedback.  Sinead will also be a teacher on our Executive Programme...

We were super inspired speaking to Ariel Ross, a creative operations expert with over 15 years in scaling agency processes. Her expertise lies in developing operational frameworks for creative agencies, making projects run smoothly and keeping teams happy. We chatted about what three qualities every great project manager should have. Also, the biggest mistake every company makes on creative operat...

We loved how honest Max Ottignon was in our chat. Max is the Co-founder of Ragged Edge – a fantastic London-based branding agency working with some of the fastest-growing startups such as Mindful Chef, Bulb, to name a few. We discussed mistakes Ragged Edge made throughout the 14 years it has been running. What makes its company culture so special, and what makes a bad haircut. For those who want t...

We were super inspired by our interview with Ilenia Notarangelo, Co-founder, CEO and Creative Director of Illo TV. The Turin-based creative agency specialises in Illustration and motion design and has created some remarkable work for the likes of Google, Airbnb and Samsung. We talked about how Ilenia started her career from a not-so-creative place. Also, the importance of picking the right busines...

We learnt so much speaking to Aporva Baxi, founder and ECD of branding agency, DixonBaxi. Aporva has an amazing career working as a creative director across the world and is now running the agency for more than 18 years. We chatted about what it was like to drop the career of a creative director in high demand to start your own agency. And how important it is to always stay creative. If you're a v...

Our final guest in our Leadership Series was the legend that is Buzz Pearce, SVP of Design at checkout.com. Buzz has over 20 years of experience in the design industry, leading teams at Skyscanner, Skype, and Microsoft, to name a few. We discussed how to communicate the value of design to your leadership team. Also, he explained how to build a safe, company culture to give honest feedback.  B...

Obsessed with branding? Then listen to these great tips from Campbell and Robyn Butler, Co-founders of Lovework Studio. Together they have worked with some of the best brand agencies around. From Wolff Olins, Design Studio, Dragon Rouge and many more. In our chat, they explained why ugly logos are a good thing, and how to present your ideas to clients in an unconventional way. If you're a visual l...

The third guest in our Leadership Series was Guy Duncan, Chief Technology Officer at Tide – one of the fastest-growing FinTech companies in the UK. Guy has over 20 years of tech leadership, previously as a CTO of BMW and other large organisations like Valtech and PayU. Be prepared to get really practical insights on how to convince your leadership team to launch your idea, how to reduce your work...

In our second interview in our Leadership Series, we were joined by Fura Johannesdottir, Chief Design Officer of Huge Inc. Fura has over 20 years of experience in the industry, working for brilliant companies like R/GA, Publicis Sapient and loads more. We discussed her approach to design leadership and the best way of talking to business leaders about the power of design.  Fura will also be a...

Our first guest in our new Leadership Series is Bidisha Sinha, Senior Associate at the legendary Zaha Hadid Architects. We chatted about the need for a new Bauhaus, what it was like to work with Architecture pioneer, Zaha Hadid, and the challenges and rewards of being a design leader.  Bidisha will also be a teacher on our Executive Programme For Design Leaders. Learn more here

We had a great chat with Sébastien Van Laere, Founder of Superframe – an agency using insight and foresight to develop brand-, innovation- and business strategy for some of the biggest global brands. We discussed why thinking about the future is important in our lives, some of his favourite trends of 2021 and whether Clubhouse is a trend or just a fad.  Sébastien also curated our Innovation S...

In a Design Hotline edition of the Creative Capes Podcast, we sat down with Mike Reed and Sam Russell of Reed Words – chatting about all things brand language, played some quick-fire, brand writing games and answered our special guests' burning questions on brand writing and language.   Mike and Sam are also curated our Building A Brand Language course –  learn how to write for bran...

On episode 16 of the Creative Capes Podcast, we had a great time speaking with Christopher Bahry, Co-founder and Creative Director of Tendril - a design-driven animation, VFX, and digital innovation studio with offices in Canada and Brazil. Christopher shares how important creative partnerships are in growing as a designer, human and a business. We also discuss his learnings from co-founding Tendr...

On episode 15 of the Creative Capes Podcast, we had so much fun speaking to T hierry Brunfaut, Founding Partner and Creative Director of Base Design  - an international network of studios based in Brussels, New York, Geneva and Melbourne. Thierry shares how he set up Base Design 30 years ago - as well as the risks he took, and everything he learnt along the way. If you want to see Ekaterina's...