Congrats to former and future strategic guru Nick Barham, who has been promoted to
co-executive creative director of W+K Shanghai. Barham
previously served as the director of W+K Shanghai Planning and is the first
planning director in W+K history to be promoted to a co-executive creative
director position. Maybe also the first ever planning director of an agency to become its creative director?

Nick will join co-executive creative director
Nick Cohen, making a Nick-Nick CD combo, and managing director Kel Hook to complete the management team for
W+K Shanghai. Barham joined W+K Shanghai in 2007 to work on Nike’s
communications leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. As the agency has
grown, he has worked across all of their clients, helping those clients to
develop a diverse body of work, including a rock ’n’ roll road trip for
Converse that took two Beijing bands across China. And he's worked closely with us in London on shared clients Nokia and Nestea.

He has also been involved in developing
W+K’s own content, including a documentary on Chinese beatboxing, an
interactive installation at Shanghai’s eARTS Festival and a limited-edition
line of watches in collaboration with the Shanghai Watch Company.

“Today, the qualifications for a true
creative director have evolved beyond craft and management; broader skills are
required in order to lead brands with speed and cultural relevancy. W+K
Shanghai is constantly redefining the norms of brand communications, and Nick
has been a creative leader in our office,” said John C. Jay, global executive
creative director of W+K. “Nick has been instrumental in developing
documentaries, music videos, event websites and applications, and in
collaborating with emerging artists and musicians in China and across Asia.”

Nick used to be at BBH London, where he worked as a planner and then a cultural reporter,
keeping the agency’s brands (Unilever, Audi, Johnnie Walker and Levi’s)
informed about changes in contemporary culture. During his time as a planner he
was a Gold winner at the APG Creative Planning Awards and wrote a winning paper
for the IPA Effectiveness Awards.

In July 2005, he moved to Shanghai to
work at TBWA with brands such as Adidas and Chivas Regal. “I expected to work
in Shanghai for a couple of years,” he said, “but the speed of change here, and
the opportunity to tear things up and produce work that changes the way that
brands behave, has made it very difficult to leave.”

Nice work, Nick.

This evening we were delighted to welcome to W+K Garrick Hamm (above left, dancing) and Richard Williams (right) of
Williams Murray Hamm to talk to us about their approach to branding and
design. Established in 1997, WMH set out to offer clients an
alternative to the intrusive logos and graphic formulas that had become
commonplace in the world of 80s and 90s brand design. Their belief was
and is that robust ideas were of much greater value to clients than
decoration and derivation. I saw Richard speak recently and was
impressed by some of the philosophical similarities between their
approach and ours, in particular the desire to get cut-through by
disregarding category conventions.

With the help of some fearless
clients, WMH has gained an international reputation for creative and
commercial success. They have won major awards at D&AD, Design
Week, Clio and New York Festivals and been named No 1 for Creative
Awards in 2005/6/7 (Design Week) and No 1 for Design Effectiveness
2003/4/6 by the DBA for work with clients like Clipper Teas, Cobra and
Sainsbury’s. This has led to Garrick Hamm being appointed D&AD
President for 2008/9 and WMH featuring in The Guardian’s ‘Top 50
Hottest Names in Design’.

They were responsible for this famous and highly successful bit of packaging design:

And recently created this airfix kit-inspired work for the Jamie Oliver Recipease brand:

It was an entertaining and thought provoking talk – always interesting to hear how other creative businesses in different fields approach what they do.

WMH apply 5 principles to their work. (I hope I scribbled these down right).

1. Difference – imitation should have no place in branding

2. Focus – try to say one thing well

3. Bravery – embrace risk

4. Judgement – trust your instinct and intuition not research

5. Think big – the idea is the most important thing

Big thanks to Richard and Garrick for taking the time to come in and talk to us.