The Icons and Innovators Focus

Established Icons and emerging Innovators shape the advertising industry. Through conversations with directors, editors, creatives, producers and artists, shots explores the ideas, influences and experiences behind enduring careers, while spotlighting the next generation already reimagining the industry's creative future.

Talent

Bryan Buckley: Commercials chaos and conviction

Hailed for his talent as well as his activist work by all awards bodies and even the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bryan Buckley is as driven by commitment as he is by making work with ‘wow’. He talks to Carol Cooper about improv, instinct and injustice, and finding humour amid the horror.

Talent

Sydney Cohen: Embracing eccentricities

Now ACD at Chicago indie agency Highdive, where she started as an intern in 2021, Dallas-born art director Sydney Cohen has already bagged a prodigious amount of awards and, along with her creative partner Jordan Fishel, made this year’s AdWeek Creative 100 list. She talked to Carol Cooper about finding inspiration in a good pun, animatronic fish, and the simple beauty of watching people being people.

Talent

Diane McArter: Holding a torch for tomorrow’s talent

Kicking off our Icons and Innovators series of profiles, Diane McArter, President of Furlined, tells Lucy Aitken how her business is not just about doing well but about doing good, praises the supporting hand of Ridley Scott, and explains the importance of championing new talent.
Talent

RVBBERDUCK: From postroom to After Party

RVBBERDUCK, also known as Ben Doyle, is the Co-Founder and Executive Creative Director of creative production company After Party Studios. He swapped delivering packages around BBH London for delivering stand-out content for the likes of Sky, Revolut, O2, Netflix and Channel 4. Lucy Aitken took delivery of his story.

Talent

Rob Galluzzo: A head full of dreams

Rob Galluzzo, Founder of Australian production company FINCH, discusses the power of freedom, how the advertising industry might change, but also remains the same, and how his belief in adventure, imagination and compassion is what keeps FINCH moving forward.

Talent

Liam Ratliff: Variety is the spice of advertising life

Australian senior creative and copywriter Liam Ratliff has worked at M&C Saatchi, Ogilvy and By All Means, all in Melbourne. Recently relocating to the UK, he talks about his experience of London, his influences, and how a minor brush with the police led to a more creative career.

Talent

Anthony Moore: At the centre of the sonic boom

From a chance meeting at a BBQ to becoming Factory Studios’ CCO and owner, Anthony Moore has been at the beating heart of Britain’s advertising soundscape for nearly 30 years. Tim Cumming talks to him about mentors, Mother and Monty the Penguin.
Talent

Radheya Jang: Playing his cards right

Radheya Jang’s beautiful but dark animated film, Trading Cards, plays with the imagery of crystal balls, fortune cookies, tea leaves and Tarot cards. Here, the director's assistant at BlinkInk talks to Tim Cumming about fortunes, futures and aiming for features.

Talent

‘Un’ Wuthisak Anarnkaporn: The surreal deal

The Thai director discusses character-driven comedy, creative risk and why the people surrounding an idea matter more than the idea itself.
Talent

Nicha Witayapaisitsan: Cooking with creativity

The SOUR Bangkok copywriter discusses Gen Z behaviour, Thai advertising’s human truths and turning everyday digital habits into ambitious platform ideas.
Talent

Adriana Legay: Cut to the beat

The Final Cut editor and Collectiv Paris Co-Founder discusses emotional editing, creative chemistry and treating every film like a piece of choreography.
Talent

Otman Qrita: The new cavalier

The Iconoclast director discusses Moroccan identity, fashion as visual language and finding emotional depth in ordinary lives.
Talent

Chaka Sobhani’s anti-misery mandate

With an impressive career trajectory, multiple awards for her big brand work and personal wins such as being Campaign’s Creative Leader 2022, and consistently featuring in Adweek’s Creative 100, the Global CCO of TBWA Worldwide, is clearly doing something right. Could it be her sunny disposition and belief in the joy of advertising? Carol Cooper shares her glee.

Talent

Olivia De Camps: The future belongs to fingerprints

SMUGGLER Director Olivia De Camps talks to Lucy Aitken about her love for ‘unforgiving’ short-form, the need for nerve, and how the best work ‘contaminates’ the memory.

Talent

Smith & Foulkes: Double vision

The Riff Raff directing duo discuss three decades of inventive animation, creative partnership and finding fresh possibilities in changing technology.
Talent

Yegane Moghaddam: The fabric of memory

The Oscar-nominated animator discusses turning personal clothing into cinematic landscapes, and why handmade processes still offer space for discovery.
Talent

Danielle Hinde: Doomsday is da bomb

Danielle Hinde, is the founder of director representation and production company Doomsday Entertainment. She has overseen groundbreaking music videos for Childish Gambino, Die Antwoord, J Lo, Katy Perry, Marvin Gaye, Justin Bieber, Flying Lotus, A Tribe Called Quest, Frank Ocean and hundreds more. Here, she talks to Daniel Huntley about sharing her weirdness, championing new voices in the industry and, hanging out behind the curtain...
Talent

Omar Jones: Chasing the dream

Director Omar Jones was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Jamaica, Queens. At a young age he moved to the Poconos in Pennsylvania where he fell in love with cameras, before moving back to New York to pursue filmmaking. Beginning as an editor and VFX artist, Jones took on odd jobs around the city to make ends meet before once again moving, this time to LA, where he is represented by PRETTYBIRD and from where he spoke to Daniel Huntley.

Talent

Richard Brim speaks from the heart

After a long time at adam&eveDDB, servicing the headline news that is John Lewis Christmas, it’s been all change for Richard Brim. Now ensconced on the fourth floor of a Soho office block, with a workforce of around 25, Brim is turning his new agency, Ace of Hearts, into a future-focused, brand new style of agency.
Talent

Dani Coyle: Pulling focus

Combining her ongoing portrait project, Inter-Face, which focuses on the intersex community, and her work [as global creative lead] with Burberry, among other luxury brands, Dani Coyle talks to Tim Cumming about her work, her process, the all-encompassing terrain of social, and her balancing cultural and sexual politics with the lineaments of luxury.

Talent

Franki says relax

 Franki Goodwin, Chief  Creative Officer at Saatchi &  Saatchi London and Executive  Producer at Western Edge  Pictures, claims she’s done  everything the wrong way  round. But that seems to  be working out pretty well.  Lucy Aitken went to Saatchi’s  London HQ to meet her.

Talent

Will Wightman: Gen Z Genius

Jonathan Grant sits down with BlinkInk's mixed-media polymath Will Wightman and discovers a wunderkind writer/director whose febrile mind issued such entities as mutilated farmyard puppets, a murderous grease monster called Mr. Sticky and a man-fly in pants.

Talent

Emma Daines: The human effect

The FIN Design + Effects founder reflects on four decades of VFX, building a people-first culture and keeping human judgement at the centre of technological change.
Talent

Arundati Thandur: Funny, period.

The FINCH director discusses TikTok-native comedy, performance-led filmmaking and finding authenticity in subjects ranging from menstruation to motherhood.
Talent

Jimmy Smith: Entertainment value

Amusement Park Entertainment’s Chairman, CEO and Chief Creative Officer discusses cultural storytelling, fearless ideas and why advertising must earn people’s attention.
Talent

Aaron Marshall: Fade in

The Supergood senior creative and copywriter discusses sport, culture, self-expression and making advertising that comes from lived experience.
Talent

Anselmo Ramos: Guided by his gut

Anselmo Ramos, Co-Founder and Creative Chairman of GUT, is a self-confessed ad nerd. He talks to Lucy Aitken about practising courage, the power of human intuition, and his admiration for Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Talent

Relta’s storytelling rhythms

Having started out as a music producer, director Relta (aka Richard Pope) moved into creating promos for both indie and big label artists, has also been commissioned to make documentaries, and often infuses his work with a musical perspective. Here director, who is repped by The Corner Shop, tells Carol Cooper how a broken XBox, a house theft and his dad’s love for fossils helped shape his career path.

Talent

Nils Leonard: Living dangerously

Uncommon founder and industry icon Nils Leonard believes the age of landfill advertising is over. Here, he talks to Amy Hey about his bohemian upbringing, radical craft, and why agencies can’t afford to play it safe anymore.

Talent

Alfie Whiteman: Moving the creative goalposts

Former professional footballer, Somesuch director and photographer Alfie Whiteman talks to Amy Hey about creative ruts, toe wrestling tournaments and exposing his insecurities.

Talent

Eve Ashwell: Cutting out the noise

One of the UK’s most respected editors and partner at post production studio tenthree, Eve Ashwell, talks to Amy Hey about surviving the brutal assistant years, how she protects her alone time in the editing suite, and the missing women in post production.

Talent

Eden Read: Making the cut

Eden Read is an award-winning editor at the assembly rooms, whose work is as much about human emotion as it as about creative precision. Here, the Young Arrows winner talks to Jonathan Grant about concentration, collaboration and emancipation.
Talent

Peter Thwaites: The chemistry of creativity

The Corner Shop’s Co-Founder Peter Thwaites talks to Tim Cumming about his four decades of creative adventures. First, he discusses life as a DP, working magic in the analogue days of film before becoming a director of spots for the likes of Audi, Honda, Guinness and more. Then he talks of setting up The Corner Shop to face the challenges and innovations of the digital present.

Talent

Max Miechowski: Border force

London-based photographer Max Miechowski mixes long-form projects such as Burgess Park and the book and exhibition Land Loss, which explore relationships between people and place, with commercial and editorial work. Here, he talks to Tim Cumming about working within defined parameters, learning to expand those boundaries, his output and its preoccupations.

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