The Future of Creative - Alan Dye (NB Studio)

For my second interview of the series I was fortunate enough to speak to Alan Dye who has had an incredible career working with some of the top agencies and brands in London and now runs his own highly successful agency - NB Studio .

?HIGHLIGHTS:

What sets NB apart from it’s competitors: "Bloody great thoughtful design and a consistently curious and talented team – a team who love a challenges and believe in the power of good design – design is all around us – good designers are aware of this – one of my pet hates is being pigeonholed. I remember once we pitched to do some packaging work for Superdrug and the head of marketing said – “You don't do packaging” and we didn’t win the project. That’s like a red rag to a bull to me, it makes me instantly want to prove them wrong – we ended up doing 10 years of beautiful packaging work for Boots – Design is all about opposite thinking, it's about creativity and defying convention."

AI: "It's here, get on board. Otherwise, do something else! I guess the moral of the story is that you need to embrace change. When you think about the people that didn’t it is pretty telling, Blockbuster, Nokia and Kodak to name a few."

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Advice to your younger self: "Oh, learn code –?don't get into design – joking aside, I think my biggest piece of advice is just enjoy what you do and do a profession that you love doing. For me design is that profession."

FULL INTERVIEW:

JC

I'd love to get a bit of an introduction on yourself and your road to working at NB Studio, I saw on LinkedIN you started your career as a Designer at the BBC! How was that?

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Alan

I did, and it feels like yesterday which is really odd! I graduated in the 1990 recession and it was really hard to get your first job. I don't think anyone got a full time job when they graduated, I remember our course teacher telling us the day we graduated all to go traveling for the next 6 months as the economy was fucked – so I started out interning at various companies – Wolff Olins, Design Bridge, LLoyd Northover and various independent studios (that don’t exist now) – it was an invaluable start as I was designing things from Wiggly Worm packaging to high end British Gas reports – but I ended up my getting my first full time job (well 3 month contract) at the BBC. It was great fun and I loved it, but it only lasted about 9 months and then I got made redundant as sadly we were still in the middle of the recession. I actually designed the logo for department which made me redundant, which was quite ironic.

In 1990, technically the world of graphic design was completely different today – Macs were in their infancy. We worked on parallel motion table, used faxes and typesetters, PMT machines, grant enlargers, pasted up artwork using cow gum on CS Board with K-Trace, fought with clogged up rotoring pens, pica rulers were king and we used the phone – If you understood that sentence you’re as old as me. That being said, after all this time the creative process has remained the same.

After that I went to the Roundel Design Group which was probably the start of my proper design career and introduction to grown up studio – although sadly I got made redundant again 10 months later as they had to let a lot of people go. I was the last in so the first out. I still keep in touch with my old boss John Bateson and Bryan Edmondson (who like me was let go and set up SEA Design) Literally the next day though I got a job at Pentagram where I worked for John McConnell for about 4/5 years. Pentagram was amazing place – I think of it as my design apprenticeship –? that was where I met Nick and Ben who went on to set up NB Studio. My journey has been a bit of a roller coaster, still is but incredible fun, it’s not over yet (I hope).

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JC

Talk to me about NB, you have been involved since almost the very start! What prompted it’s founding and what has the journey been like?

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Alan

At Pentagram Nick’s [Founder and Creative Director at NB Studio] chair backed onto mine and we became mates straightaway. Then Ben [former Founder at NB Studio] joined the computer department and we all just really got on. When you leave Pentagram you realise it's really hard to work anywhere else. Originally my plan was to freelance and go travelling so NB was started by Nick and Ben and I joined about a year later.

Whilst I was freelancing I had a few top jobs that I got booted out of. If I am honest I was just unemployable and I couldn't be bothered to work for certain people, there were too many egos. Pentagram just had such a beautiful hands on design process and their culture was amazing. ?Replicating that is what Nick and I really wanted to do, to us the culture NB is hugely important.

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JC

An agency’s culture is such a key characteristic! Other than the culture, what would you say sets NB apart from your competitors?

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Alan

Bloody great thoughtful design and a consistently curious talented team – a team who love a challenges and believe in the power of good design – design is all around us – good designers are aware of this – one of my pet hates is being pigeonholed. I remember once we pitched to do some packaging work for Superdrug and the head of marketing said – “You don't do packaging” and we didn’t win the project. That’s like a red rag to a bull to me, it makes me instantly want to prove them wrong – we ended up doing 10 years of beautiful packaging work for Boots – design is all about opposite thinking, it's about creativity and defying convention. Assumptions are cause of most creative mistakes (assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups). Why do you want to be like everybody else? The misfit is always going to stand out, NB never forget the importance of humour, wit and simple elegant design, If you don't want to stand out then don't come to NB – we're not about doing bland, boring forgettable design.

NB have worked with so many amazing brands over the years from the V&A, Tate, LSE, Ravensbourne University, Pernod Ricard, Practical Action, Almeida Theatre, GR8 People, The Kraken, Mindshare, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Mothercare, Anna, mPharma, The University of Oxford, Mindshare, The Drum, Petit Pli, Knoll, The Vineyard Theatre in NY, Philharmonia Luxembourg and two incredible health and Framtech start-ups in Ghana, MPharma and Farmerline. A whole variety of beautiful, wonderful work that has challenged convention, and created change. We’ve been lucky to work with inspiring clients and marketers who really understand the power of design and opposite thinking – for instance, Mothercare came to us because we had never done retail before, Pernod Ricard (Chivas Regal) wanted to work with NB because we had never worked in the luxury drinks sector before. Its these sort of brave clients that we love working with and it always makes us better. NB also have great strategists it allows us to work across a huge variety of sectors and briefs. Strategy, writing, project management and design all work hand in hand at NB – It’s really a beautiful thing when it all comes together.

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JC

Working with brave clients must be every agencies dream! So where do you think the creative industry is going? Where do you see the future of creative?

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Alan

That's a big question. I always think the world of the creative industry has always been the same – it's always in flux – it's always changing – it's always modernising – it's always rethinking itself. Brilliant design is always going to rise to the top – whether it’s an Ad, graphic, architecture or product design – however, I think the business of design has hugely changed since I started out – since the 60’s there has always been many brilliant and fiercely independent design and advertising agencies (and there probably are still today, but I don’t think they are as famous). The WPPs, Proximo, Havas have bought and merged many of them – and now offer up a 360 creative: brand, packaging, advertising and digital all in one house. Is it for the better? I don't know.

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JC

How do you think AI is going to affect that change?

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Alan

I think it is going to revolutionise how we do things. But the creative industry is always being revolutionised. It is the same as going back to the 15th century and asking someone “what do you think of Gutenberg Press in 1440?”. Gutenberg revolutionised and changed the way people started to read, it spearheaded the reformation and the renaissance. Again with Alexander Graham Bell in 1875, with the birth of the telephone. What did people do before mobile phones or the internet? AI is here now as part of our world, as part of our life. Embrace it, enjoy it. If you're not involved in it within the creative industry I think you're going to be pretty much out of business in 5-10 years time. Of course it currently has a lot of ethical problems and copyright issues if you're using imagery but I think that will get ironed out soon. Ultimately it is going to make life a lot easier. In summary, what do I think of AI? It's here, get on board. Otherwise, do something else! I guess the moral of the story is that you need to embrace change. When you think about the people that didn’t it is pretty telling, Blockbuster, Nokia and Kodak to name a few. However, AI not going to stop me or NB collaborating with our fabulous craft based artisans.

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JC

One of the questions I've also really enjoyed asking people is if you kind of had one piece of advice for your kind of younger professional self, what would it be?

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Alan

Oh, learn code –?don't get into design – Joking aside, I think my biggest piece of advice is just enjoy what you do and do a profession that you love doing. For me design is that profession. Monday should be the same as a Friday and a Saturday afternoon should be the same as a Wednesday afternoon, because design is a way of life. You see things differently. You hear things differently, you think things differently. In my case, I spell things completely differently! I love it because it's always continually changing. It's really hard work sometimes and you have to do some really tough decisions, especially running a business. But every single day is different, that's what's incredible about it. Have fun and enjoy it!

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And never forget to stay curious –?beautifully summed up here by David Bowie.

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"Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being. Go a little bit out of your depth and when you don't feel your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting."

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A huge thanks to Alan for his time, it was a highly enjoyable conversation from an incredibly experienced and successful Creative Director and business owner. If you are keen to get involved in this series please get in touch!