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james art director profile
Firstname/Profession
James
Art Director
12 Plus years Experience
Auckland
7272

Represented: 01/05/20


Bio

Meet James.

 

My creative credentials start at kindergarten, where I had three walls of my art on display and the other kids had one. More recently I’ve enjoyed a successful 32-year career in advertising, digital, design and illustration, after graduating from Wellington Polytechnic with a three-year diploma in Visual Communication Design.

 

Between freelancing spells, I’ve been a Senior Art Director at BCG2 and M&C Saatchi, Head of Art at Ogilvy, Deputy Creative Director at TBWA Paling Walters in London, Creative Director at Neilson Scott, and I ran my own design studio: Design Form.

 

I’ve created brand, digital, direct, experiential and retail campaigns & designs for over 260 brands ranging from L&P to Amex to KFC to the Police.

 

Over 50 of my photoillustrations have been published in the likes of Metro, Next & Cuisine.

 

I’ve won 85 industry awards including gold at Cannes, AWARD, Effie, Echo and the NZ DM & Interactive Awards. Plus a Lifetime Achievement award from ORCA.

 

But despite having been amongst the very top ranked Kiwi ad creatives, my three kids reckon I could try a bit harder because their schoolmates have never heard of me.

Expertise

Art Direction Content Strategy Creative Direction Directing Graphic Design Ideation Social Media Marketing Typography

Software

Illustrator CC InDesign CC Photoshop CC

I'm best known for...

Getting a reaction. Laughter, tears, joy, shock; whatever gets the message across best. The bigger the reaction the better. I’m equally at home doing silly, premium, controversial, minimal, complex, high-tech, low-tech, weird, honest or tricky. My favourite reaction is “I love that".

Industries I know well

Automotive
Financial
Forestry/Building
Government
Healthcare/Cosmetics
House/Garden
Industrial
Publishing/Media
Retail
Services/Telco
Social/Environment
Sports
Travel/Leisure

Mediums I know well

Ambient
Digital
Direct
Outdoor
Print
Social
TV

Honours & awards

AWARD Sydney : Gold, Silver x11, Bronze
Axis Awards Auckland : Bronze x2
Axis Ideas School Auckland : Best Total Campaign
Best Design Awards Auckland : Bronze, Highly Commended x2
Cannes Lions : Gold, Silver, Bronze
Effies Auckland : Best in Show, Gold x3, Silver x3, Bronze
Empreintes Paris : Gold Grand Prix, OTC Grand Prix
HAAG London : Silver x2, Bronze x2
International Echo Awards New York : Best In Show, Gold, Bronze
John Caples International Awards, New York : Bronze
NZ Direct Marketing Awards Auckland : Gold x5, Silver x6, Bronze x5, Craft x4
NZ Marketing Awards Auckland : Sector Award
ORCA Awards Auckland : Grande ORCA, People’s Choice, Lifetime Achievement
OTC Bulletin/Taylor Nelson Sofres Awards London : Best in Category x5, Best Agency
OTC News Marketing & Creative Awards London : Overall Winner, Highly Commended x2
PM Society of London : Craft Winner, Craft Awards x4
Rx Club of New York : Gold Awards x2, Awards of Excellence x5
Typographers International Association New York : Typographic Excellence Award

Qualifications

Wellington Polytechnic

Visual Communications Design

1985 – 1987

Advertising, Graphic Design, Typography, Photography, Television and Illustration.

 

Axis Ideas School Auckland

1993

Creative. Digital. Marketing. Recruitment.