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So often we spend time spotlighting industry leaders, seasoned veterans and established experts. It’s much more of a rarity to get to speak to some of the juniors within the space about the fantastic work they’re doing. Still early in their careers, their perspective is untainted with the baggage of, ‘how things have always been done’, granting freedom to experiment, iterate and innovate.

Robin and James, part of this new brigade of creatives, exemplify this essence. They're young designers who come filled to the brim with exuberance for the work they do. Their approaches have not only garnered recognition at their own agency, but on the global stage too. Recent Bronze Young Lions at Cannes, the pair sat down with us to discuss their views on creativity, as well as the unique influence of Irish history on modern day design.

What’s clear is their dedication to their craft. Whether it’s James’ renewed passion for branding, seeking to master the nuances of identity creation in a saturated market, or Robin’s aspiration to delve into motion and 3D for VFX, their narratives are both distinct and intertwined. Here, we meet part of a new generation ready to redefine creative paradigms.

��������> Robin and James, thanks for joining us. Let’s begin with a big one. What does creativity mean to you?

Robin & James> Creativity means having lots of bad ideas and then having a good one. You have to be willing to have more bad ideas than good ones, and to write them all down, have them shot down, and trust that eventually something will stand out on the page. To be creative you have to take risks and be okay with failing. 

��������> What do you think Irish creativity offers to the world that is different from what we might see elsewhere? 

Robin & James> Ireland is a small Island that’s steeped in history; history that continues to influence Irish creatives today. Literature, music, war, famine, art, emigration, our history - rich and tragic - significantly impacts our approach and design. This could be seen at Cannes when our very own Huskies tapped into this with ‘The Famine Foodbank”. Despite the notion that hunger was something we left behind way back in the 1800’s, food poverty is still a huge, almost hidden problem in modern day Ireland. To highlight this Huskies installed a food bank in front of the most powerful symbol of hunger in Irish history, the famous Famine Memorial in Dublin City Docklands and was shortlisted in the Design category at Cannes Lions, under ‘Spatial & Sculptural Exhibitions and Experiences’. 

��������> In the Company of Huskies joined the esteemed global creative agency - Forsman & Bodenfors earlier this year. What can you tell us about your experience at the collective in Sweden in Forsman & Bodenfors?

Robin & James> We were very well taken care of by our Swedish colleagues! They showed us around Gothenburg and we were even invited to someone’s house on one of the islands where they let us borrow their canoe to see Sweden’s beautiful scenery. Liseberg’s amusement park was another highlight. In terms of the work, Forsman & Bodenfors was kind enough to give us at least an hour with the heads of each agency in the Forsman & Bodenfors family where we got more insight into the day-to-day of their studios and got to take home a copy each of ‘Craft – Ultimate Guide to Running’ book. 

��������> How would you sum up your experience at Cannes overall this year?

Robin & James> Surreal! From start to finish it felt like a dream, and in the best way possible. Access to the world’s best creatives, private beaches and talks from leading designers, sports stars and TV personalities; all under a 30°C sun. That’s without mentioning the amazing company we had; surrounded by our friends and colleagues from Huskies and Forsman & Bodenfors, the Irish competitors who we got to know well over the week, and IAPI who made it all possible.

Some of the standout speakers at the event included Lorne Michaels, Maria Sharapova and Spike Lee. (Robin) - my only complaint would be that for the number of speakers SNL had on the panel, I wish they had more time to speak, which is the complaint you want to have if you’re going to have any. We swear this has nothing to do with it being part of the Stagwell family, but the best talks we attended were on the Stagwell Sports Beach. I (James) was super excited to hear the talk with Maria Sharapova, as I grew up watching her play at Wimbledon, and the Spike Lee talk was the best surprise ever! Spike Lee’s “The Intersection of Creativity, Sport, and Culture” is on YouTube and I recommend that everyone watch it.  

��������> What would you say was your biggest takeaway? Any particular learnings or industry insights?

Robin & James> Ariana Stolarz - chief strategy officer x Accenture Song - gave an interesting talk on how bad English can be good in advertising! The point Ariana is making is that simple English is clear and accessible to everyone. Many people in English speaking countries speak in broken English, so adverts with complicated English can be ineffective.

One of the other takeaways was learning that when so much amazing work gets submitted to a competition, some of the judging will come down to personal preference. That’s not to say that anyone who won didn’t deserve it, it’s pretty much the opposite, there’s so much wonderful and meaningful work submitted every year, you’d almost want to see them all succeed. 

��������> Congratulations on your win! How did it feel?

Robin & James> Unreal! Making it to Cannes was already a huge achievement for both of us. You hope for the win, and work for the win, but getting the win exceeded our expectations for Cannes. Our feedback from the judges was promising but we knew we were up against the world’s best young designers and didn’t want to get ahead of ourselves. When our names were called out, we did have a “are we reading that right?” moment, and I (Robin) personally do not remember the 5-10 minutes that followed the announcement. 

��������> What was the brief and what did your creative process look like? Any challenges?

Robin & James> The brief was to rebrand an Indian non-profit. The non-profit ‘Rocket Learning’ provides learning to impoverished parents in India with videos and educational games via WhatsApp, empowering them to teach their three–eight-year-olds at home.

Settling on an idea can always be a challenge; knowing how long you should keep exploring and ideating before you start designing. To overcome this time issue (24 hours goes fast) we decided we’d spend the first day ideating and wouldn’t sleep before we got an idea down that we’d be okay with going ahead with. This way we could wake up and get straight to execution. 

��������> Can you tell us about what you’re working on at the moment, any goals and aspirations for the future, and what we can expect to see next from you?

James> After Cannes I would love to get more into the branding side of design. Getting to focus solely on creating a brand identity at Cannes - logo, type, colour, mascot, gave me time to really dive back into branding, and it was everything I’d hoped it’d be.

Robin> For myself I’m leaning more and more towards motion and 3D, the long-term dream would be to work on the VFX side of commercials or movies, I’ve gotten a chance to do things not too far from that in the past few months so I’m just hoping that we can keep this momentum going, it’s not a bad first year in the industry.