Blimey. A lot of people just joined us. I guess we must be growing fast. This is Rob Kendall. He’s here on loan from the Portland office, working in our studio. It’s the first time he’s ever visited the UK. Culture shock! Meanwhile, Beanie, one of our designers, is visiting Portland. Hey, Beanie, if you’re reading this, let us know what you’re up to.
W+K, at 6 offices and a few hundred people worldwide, is a relatively small network. We try to arrange transfers and exchanges like this to spread the culture virus round the network and cross-pollinate thinking. It’s not always easy to sort them out so we’re glad this one has come off. Hopefully Rob, Beanie, Portland and London will all learn new stuff and think differently about what we do as a result.

Above are Fab and Ida, who first came to our attention when they stuck life-size photos of themselves pressed up against the outside of our windows to show how keen they were to get in.

A few months later, we’ve offered them jobs and they’re moving to the UK on a permanent basis.

Here are the stories of their lives. So far:

Fabian Berglund

Born and raised in Sweden so naturally I love skiing in the winter and playing tennis in the summer. I did a year of Television/Film studies in Sydney a couple of years ago. After working in postproduction on reality shows for a few months I then decided I wanted to get into advertising instead. Graduated from Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm last summer and moved to London in August. I like it here but it’s always tough being compared with great success exports such as ABBA, IKEA and Swedish meatballs.

Ida Gronblom

The eldest daughter of the Finnish Pizza King with no intention of inheriting the throne. A bachelor degree in design brought me to Sweden working as a designer for Hennes & Mauritz where I stayed for over three years. A great experience that finally made me realize what I really wanted to do: to become an art director. So I went back to school. Since I look young and unmarried it was ok.  After two years of advertising school I came to the conclusion that Sweden’s not the best place on earth (who cares about fresh air and blond wood anyway!) so I decided to move to London instead. Somehow I seem a lot taller here, which is nice 🙂

Also new in the creative department,  Frank Ginger, who just joined from Fallon. His partner Sam Heath was featured on here a few days back.

And this is Rebecca Tickle,  who joined us today from TBWA to be account director on Honda.