A brand isn’t just a logo—it’s the heartbeat of a company. It’s a promise made, a story told, and a journey embarked. And when it came time to unveil our new brand identity, we didn’t just throw a party—we ignited a spark that lit up the room and set our team on fire with excitement!
Picture this: anticipation buzzing in the air, hearts pounding with excitement, and then…the big reveal! Our brand had undergone a stunning transformation—bold, vibrant, and unmistakably us.
But the magic didn’t stop there. Our event wasn’t just about the visuals or the merch—it was about the people behind the scenes who poured their passion and creativity into every detail. Every team member played a crucial role in making our brand identity launch successful.
Ultimately, our brand identity launch event wasn’t just about unveiling a new look—it was about igniting a spark of excitement and possibility that would fuel us on our journey forward. And as we continue to write the next chapter of our story, we do so with hearts full of passion, purpose, and endless optimism. There are lots of pictures we will be sharing on social media. Here are a few of them.
25+ years working for one agency—how did that happen?
It’s a great question and one I have been asked plenty of times by wide-eyed Gen Zs and millennials, who often find the idea of staying put in one place tantamount to insanity.
The simple answer is that it wasn’t planned and has happened in the blink of an eye. It’s true time does fly, especially when you’re having fun (and even when the going gets tough, such is agency life). One minute I was making plans to travel and work in Australia post-finishing university, and the next my last CV application for a design role (genuinely) led to an interview at Outlook HQ in Northampton—and the rest is history.
Outlook as a business has always managed to meet my ambitions and provide a career path within a growing agency that has allowed me to grow and flourish, rising from Graphic Designer to Director and proud shareholder in the business.
As well as my personal growth within the business, the transient nature of agency life has meant that I’ve been blessed to have worked with many exceptional designers, producers, account managers, and colleagues throughout the 25 years. This, combined with the opportunity to work with and for some truly brilliant clients and brands—including Silverstone, Twickenham, Club Wembley, GLP, Sacla, Fred Olsen, and Parexel, to name but a few—has kept the creative juices flowing. The satisfaction of seeing our talented team delight and inspire clients never ceases to put a smile on my face and keep the passion for my role burning brightly.
The evolution of the agency, its people, and its values over 25 years also plays a huge part in keeping things fresh and engaging. New opportunities, new people, new thoughts and beliefs, new client challenges, and new and constantly evolving technology mean we are never standing still. The highly competitive nature of the industry we operate in means there is never a dull day; we always need to be on our A game, even in those difficult times. In fact, the irony is that it’s the difficult moments on projects where both individuals and teams learn the most. If it’s easy, then you have to question whether you’re really nailing a client brief and putting in the extra effort to sprinkle that all-important magic that helps set you apart from the many ravenous competitor agencies that are waiting in the wings to swoon a client should you drop your guard and let your standards slip.
One of the most pleasing aspects I have seen big improvement in since I first started is the investment in our people’s welfare. Naturally we can continue to improve and evolve, but we have made huge strides forwards in terms of trying to find a much better work-life balance for our teams in what is a very high-pressured service-led industry where the clients and their deadlines are key. We recognise the importance of having happy, healthy, and motivated individuals at the top of their game and this can’t happen if we’re working them to the bone and not giving them any time to enjoy the fruits of their labour and spend quality time with their friends, family, and colleagues.
It’s equally pleasing to see that clients also recognise the importance of respecting a supplier’s welfare. We want to be an extended part of our clients’ teams and, for us to be able to do our very best work, we need the time and support to do this working in collaboration with a client’s own challenges and demands.
The role of technology has been the biggest and most visible shift in transforming our industry recently and this, I believe, is only set to increase massively. Personally, I find AI and all the benefits it can bring to our profession exciting and, if used correctly and morally, can be a huge benefit to both agencies and the end results we provide for our clients. The access to essential data, R&D, the speed, and the mega visual library at an agency’s fingertips combined with the expertise of a talented team of creatives can only bring positive benefits for all. It’s the equivalent of turbocharging a creative team’s experience and talent, which is incredibly powerful. As an agency we shouldn’t fear AI but embrace what it can do to improve the output and efficiencies of our industry.
So, to summarise: Is staying with one company right for you? I think it’s a very personal choice and there is no right or wrong answer. If you work for a great company that treats you well, has fun, produces great work for great clients, and provides a positive career path for you, then why move? The grass is often not always greener. But if any of these elements are missing or not putting a smile on your face then, yes, it’s time to move on—and this can also be a positive for your development.
What works for one doesn’t work for all, but don’t feel the pressure to move on just because you feel your CV demands it. Agencies now, especially with the advent of AI, are looking for integrity, loyalty, and positivity, combined with initiative and drive.
Being happy and motivated to create your very best work is the key, and this should be a core value to align with your personal ambitions. Whether this is with one business or several, the choice is yours. But whatever you do, enjoy the journey!
The great Steve Jobs once said to John Sculley of PepsiCo: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?”
Now, I’m not suggesting we always set out to change the world, but it is our mission to strike the sweet spot between just delivering on a prescribed brief and utilising all our skills across the agency to think bigger. Not out-of-scope bigger, but bigger in terms of our collaborative thinking to garner clever solutions. It’s important to stay honest to those time, budget, and quality parameters—if accurate, those are set for a reason and true creativity shines through within those constraints.
To quickly summarise the analogy of Jobs and Sculley; selling sugar water for us would be like simply executing the brief with no real problem-solving, no creative or strategic thought, no crafted experience, and no added value. You would have to ask yourself: “What was the point and what did we achieve?”
Transforming creative into reality is a bit like that. We hang our hat on this statement, so I wanted to crystallise what we mean by it at Outlook Creative.
It’s a snappy slogan for sure, but it really does distil down and reflect our approach to everything we do. It’s important to consider our audience which, as with any agency, is multifaceted—our clients, prospective clients, our people and potential new recruits, the trade media, and our partners—they all need to get it. And crucially, we want them to believe it.
In simple terms, transforming creative into reality means we know how to get shit done. But it’s not just about ‘doing’ and turning over projects—it’s about truly delivering for our clients. Finding the right solution for the challenge we’ve been set and all the while providing value, whether that be clever budget saving, additional considerations around sustainability, or just a really smart idea that goes beyond the brief to better tackle the problem.
Let’s put it into plain English—we’re a creative agency that is rooted in production reality. With over 25 years of production expertise and many in-house capabilities that any agency would be proud of, we’re able to set additional parameters in place that sit over and above the client brief. Often these are very focused on the endgame—the build, the tech, operations, logistics and delivery—taking something from the drawing board to reality, as promised.
By beginning with our endgame, it means our creative and strategic thinking is well-informed and credible, and our concepts can manifest themselves in the real world. ‘Clear blue-sky thinking’ has its place but is generally a term I dislike—it often means that we don’t really know what we want, or the implications of delivering such a ground-breaking idea. Often, you can end up selling a dream to the client that is impossible to implement on brief (not enough time or money are usually the prohibitive reasons). You end up hacking away at the original idea until it fits within those immovable prerequisites, if you’re not careful, things can soon end up looking a little like Frankenstein.
In short, we think about the audience, the end use, the unsexy ops and logistics and everything else in between, so that we can unreservedly deliver on our promise.
It’s this approach that not only transforms creative into reality but also builds a relationship that is centred around reliability and trust and is testament to several of our client relationships that span well over a decade.
Recently I stumbled across a video of Barack Obama giving advice for people starting out in their careers; it got me thinking.
It was clear to me that the advice he went on to share is relevant for a business and especially an independent creative agency like Outlook Creative.
What he said was, “learn how to get stuff done” and that he looks for “somebody who says, ‘Let me take care of that.’”
My experience shows me he is right.
As I approach my 15th year in this industry, I haven’t yet encountered a client who doesn’t like it when we say, “let me take care of that.”
Reflecting on my interview at what we then called The Outlook Creative Group, way before I moved into the leadership role I hold today, I recall being encouraged by the can-do attitude that existed and how everyone was focused on providing solutions. Not just a solution but multiple solutions, allowing for clients to make informed decisions.
Seemingly, this agency’s leaders before the current team established a great culture in this regard.
Which brings me to my point; sorry it took so long to get here. It is all about solutions first.
Every brief we receive has a challenge for us to overcome, a problem to solve. The journey to finding the optimal solution isn’t always linear or direct and often requires us to lean into many of our specialist capabilities to crack it. But it’s those twists and turns and bumps in the road that can be the catalyst for uncovering some of the most creative ideas.
Mr Obama also says “I’ve seen at every level people who are very good at describing problems, people who are very sophisticated in explaining why something went wrong or why something can’t get fixed.” That has never been us at Outlook Creative and never will be. We will say “let me take care of that” and find a solution.
A solutions-first mindset has served us well for 25+ years and it is here to stay.
