By Mandy Nelson
Sometimes we get asked what the ‘G’ and ‘A’ in G&A Creative Agency stand for. Those letters originally stood for the initials of our names – but that is now so irrelevant and such a small part of the current picture that I am not even going to remind anyone what those are. We’re moving on.
We’ve decided that those letters can mean whatever we jolly well want them to. Or indeed, whatever you want them to mean – positive associations only of course. Yeah, yeah, any of us can up with rude acronyms or silly and gross stuff – that’s too easy. We’re sticking to acronyms that are imaginative, creative and challenging, and say something about the values and culture that our agency stands for as well as the ideas that challenge and excite us.
Embracing my inner child, I hearby decree that we’re allowed to pick a theme and change what G&A stands for whenever we like, as often as we like. Thank goodness this name game began after October when my inner child might have demanded Halloween theming along the lines of Ghoul and Avatar, Ghost and Apparition, or Ghastly and Abhorrent. (Time to distract the inner child with large quantities of disgustingly sweet but gluten-free confectionery that looks like dead babies covered in blood.)
I’m starting with simple and obvious words: I may not be able to resist the tempatation to move through the Lexicon of Difficult Words in due course but, for this month, G is for Gifted and A for Awesome. Gifted describes the members of the G&A design team. G&A employs only the most Gifted creatives who resonate with our agency values of Never Ordinary; Collaborative Creativity; Straight Talk; Constant Learning; Guiding; and Laughter Each Day. Our designers consistently come up with exceptional creative concepts and deliver technically accurate artwork to clients, day after day, week after week and year after year. Bouquets to our designers!
Paul and Emma
This is a chance to introduce the two newest additions to the design team: Emma Cameron and Paul Richardson. Emma started with G&A early this year. Not only is Emma a talented musician and songwriter fronting her own band, she is also a remarkably organised young woman with a down-to-earth approach. Her natural creativity comes packaged with high attention to detail and a wonderful way with the clients, an unusual combination in a designer.
Paul has been with G&A for a couple of months now. Highly-qualified, with a masters degree in design, Paul takes concept work to extraordinary creative heights. A true original, he brings design flair, academic thinking and a sense of humour to G&A as he challenges and expands our team’s creative thinking every single day. When he is not thinking hard, he is playing hard: cycling and paddling his way to extreme fitness.
‘Awesome’ was the spontaneous verbal client reaction we got to our most recent creative presentation – and the reaction we aim for, every time. We love to surprise a client and provoke them into saying ‘Awesome’ at a concept presentation. We have a couple of big presentations looming before the end of this year and look forward to a chance to spread more awesomeness.
So, what will it be for next month: Grand and Aspirational? Grounded and Authentic? I haven’t yet decided but, when a few words have wriggled around inside the heads here at G&A for a couple of weeks, something unexpected will manifest.