Do Brands need Agencies anymore?
That’s such a great question.
I think we’re at the tipping point right now. The answer is increasingly ‘no’ in Graphic Design—especially within brand expression—and I don’t think brand creation is far behind. FMCG Packaging is a specialism that seems protected (for now). Many established brands have added internal creative teams over the last five years and the rest are busy building them right now. I think its an exciting time to be independent and flexible. In the near future, the best creative talent will work inside brands, not agencies. And why not? After all, the agency model is more than 60 years old. It’s about time someone re-designed it!
Back then, most company executives didn’t know the first thing about creativity. Happily, things have changed. Big business has employed Chief Brand Officers and Heads of Design & Marketing. Creative Directors are commonplace even within consulting and professional service firms and the need to create fast-turnaround digital content has led to the formation of creative departments in-house. The most important requirements never change: clear strategy, original ideas and supreme craft.
What’s your background?
In late 2019, I began a plan with my two partners to close our own 21-year-old design, advertising and digital agency—not because we were coming of age—but because we were drifting mid-sized into the middle of nowhere; with agile, independent specialists on one side and huge global networks on the other. We had a blast and made some iconic stuff, but It was time to really challenge how I worked.
Your skillset?
I’m a graphic designer who managed the rise of a very successful agency but I never forgot my natural talent was to design. I inspired a team of creatives as Creative Director, designing every day, leading by example. I’m lucky to be able to draw well, and my fascination with craft and execution means I have a diverse set of technical skills; in writing, 2D, 3D, and in moving image. My experience has made me an expert in multi-disciplinary brand communication, completing more than 1000 projects over almost 30 years. A missing link for fledgling internal creative teams; I’m strategic, entrepreneurial and effective. I’m determined to create original ideas, define new visual language and execute world-class communication solutions. I’ve delivered projects across multiple media for many of the world’s best-known brands and demonstrated at board-level that investment in design will create growth.
Can you help a Brand like ours?
Independent and indispensable, I’m able to bring multi-sector experience to inspire and lead internal creative teams in challenging times. To complement them, not to rival them, I work in partnership, on your projects, alongside your people. It’s a smarter, simpler way to work. I’m able to flex; work for a day, a year or anything in between. I’m more affordable than an agency and more agile and accessible now I’m no longer running one.
Perhaps you’re looking to create a brand or build and lead an internal creative team inside an established one. Perhaps you need a creative director, an art director, a strategist or an ‘ideas guy’ to help you grow? You might need help to create a name, to define a sub-brand or to market new products or services, develop a campaign, or even design a book or a website. Maybe you’d like an independent audit on your marketing output or a view on the competition from ‘outside the circle’?
I’m there. Working with you, right inside your issues, developing a deeper knowledge of your products and services first hand. Not from the outside—but from right at the centre of the opportunity.
An opportunity just like yours.
What They Say
"Thank-you for all the help and support you give. We’re really lucky to have you as part of the team."
"He’s been immense – generous, determined, full of ideas, always ready to be there for the cause."
"I’m not sure many designers would have put in the perspiration required to turn such a great concept into reality."
"It’s really fantastic, so detailed, thorough and very well written."
"One of the Top Ten Graphic Designers in the UK"
"I do not know how such ugly people do such beautiful work."
Mark Bonner MA(RCA)
Consultant Creative Director
Founder & co-Creative Director of GBH.London 1991-2020. D&AD President 2015, Trustee 2011-15. Winner of 80 international design awards including 43 D&AD Pencils. Masterclass Trainer for D&AD: ‘Art Direction for Brand Communication’. Visiting Lecturer at AUB, Falmouth, UAL, Kingston and Bucks Universities. Published ‘Charm, Belligerence & Perversity’ in 2017.