Private View(s)

It’s easy to be cynical about the state of branding, but Ragged Edge founder Max Ottignon definitely isn’t. After 20 years running an agency he’s more optimistic than ever about what great branding can achieve, and the need for the kind of emotional connection it sparks.

After selling to Twitter in 2021, Halli Thorleifsson thought his agency days were over. But he’s back, he’s running his studio Ueno again, and he’s powered by a fresh surge of enthusiasm for the digital space. We spoke about why he tells brands not to hire him, what companies actually need from digital agencies, and how being at Twitter changed his perspective.

Branding is about feeling out the terrain, not planting a flag, according to Nikita Walia, who joins us to talk about getting brand strategy out of the PDF and into the real world.

The startup world moves fast, thinks different, and breaks things. But when it comes to creativity, the old agency playbook doesn't always apply, says our latest podcast guest Brian Wakabayashi, Head of Brand at WestCap’s internal creative studio CōLab.

Hard truths about building brand community: it’s difficult, it’s time-consuming, and it requires enormous commitment. But the brands that get it right will flourish. For the latest episode of our podcast, we chatted with Culture Defined founder Viktoria Wyckman about what community actually means, and embracing a slower approach to creative work.

Albert Hill, consultant and co-founder of much-admired estate agency The Modern House, discusses why a more instinctive, experimental kind of branding could be key to beating the algorithm.

Victoire Cogevina Reynal, co-CEO at club ownership group Mercury/13, sets out her mission for the business (no less than the emancipation of women’s football teams around the world), and discusses why branding and creativity are at the absolute core of Mercury/13’s big ambitions.

Jono Holt, founder of creative agency Otherway, discusses whether anyone still loves the 60-second ad format, and how short-form can be a shortcut for brands that want to get to the heart of culture.

Tim Huelskamp, co-founder and CEO of knowledge company 1440, on using a very old format to build a very modern media brand – and how customer stories helped grow the business from 78 subscribers to millions.

Arin Delaney, co-founder of copywriting studio Fonzie, discusses the magical potential of a great name, including its far-reaching power as a marketing tool and the studio’s ‘spiritual’ and ‘ethereal’ approach to naming brands and products.

Karen Meddour, Global Head of Fondation Chanel, joins design studio Accept & Proceed to discuss what it takes to build a change-making brand, as well as an agency partnership that goes beyond creative collaboration.

Alex Center, founder of Brooklyn-based brand studio Center, shares what he learned from leading the design team of a blue chip business, and his thoughts on building culture and community inside the studio.

Margaret Kerr-Jarrett and Emunah Winer from branding agency Nihilo chat frankly about using creativity as a refuge from everyday life, and the close-knit partnership that underpins everything they do.

“The problem with science is how it’s communicated.” SEED co-founder, Ara Katz, on making next gen probiotics more digestible with carefully considered, approachable design.

Introducing: Merchery co-founder, Simon Polet – on how selling less equals success when it comes to making the corporate customisation market more sustainable.

In this episode, we meet the co-founders of Montreal-based creative studio Wedge: Justin Lortie and Sarah Di Domenico. Though they already boasted a robust list of international clients, the pandemic has had a silver lining. Being in Montreal, many potential clients previously gave preference to agencies with a presence in major hubs like New York or San Francisco. But, no longer – remote working...

In this episode, we meet Emmett Shine, ​​Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder of Pattern, a family of simple, stylish homeware brands that hopes to help us find greater joy in our domestic spaces. Pattern span out of era-defining creative agency Gin Lane, which helped to shepherd in a generation of digital-ready, Millennial-geared brands such as Harry’s, Hims and Sweetgreen.

In this episode, we meet Trevor Hubbard, the founder and Global CEO of Butchershop Creative. Headquartered in San Francisco, their reach is far beyond the Bay Area: their expansion as a business has turned to the acquisition of complementary agencies to broaden their capabilities – recently acquiring Maniak, a digital-first design and technology firm in Guadalajara, and next looking to acquire ano...

In this episode, we meet Umar ElBably, co-founder and co-CEO of Faculty, a brand centred on the premise that masculine grooming needed its walls torn down. Launching with a line of nail polishes, it was quick to attract attention, raising $3million in seed funding in 2021, led by Estee Lauder. Also remarkable is Umar himself: Faculty is his first venture since graduating from the Ivey Business Sch...

Back for a rolling series of Private View(s). In this episode, we meet Will Esparza and Kelli Robertson, co-founders of creative agency Hyphenated. Founded just before the pandemic, they're already bagging major clients, such as Nike, Therabody, and 2k Games, producing energised and exciting work that speaks to Hyphenated’s mission of “shared progress”.

Episode 10 of private views dives into the creative practice and studio of NY's Mythology, featuring founding partner Fernando Music.

Manuel Dilone, Creative Director of studio Character, one of the largest and heavy-hitting branding agencies on the west coast of America, discusses with Private View(s) how branding often lacks identity, and so they lean towards projects where they can add flexible meanings to a concept.

London based AllofUs, who have worked with Sky, Ikea and Microsoft, houses a team of digital innovation and service design pioneers who create iconic and successful new businesses, services and products. In this meeting with Private View(s), former AllofUs Design Partner Ricardo Amorim explains how an understanding of human behaviour is a prerequisite in using technology to push the boundaries of...

Gretel is a full service, platform agnostic, design, branding and strategy studio based in New York City. Partnering with brands big and small to create striking, memorable, distinctive design-driven solutions, they have worked on projects with The New York Times and Netflix. Greg Hahn, Owner and Founder of Gretel, sits down with Private View(s) to discuss how disconnecting from your own ego empow...

International brand and design agency DesignStudio have worked with Airbnb, the Premier League and Deliveroo, building brands with purpose which impact millions. In this episode, Paul Stafford, Co-Founder and CEO, tells Private View(s) how they begin the creative process by fully immersing themselves in a client’s culture, gaining understanding through first-hand experiences and participation.