If August showed some positive green shoots for the creative industry, September is proving even more fruitful. Here are the month’s biggest movers, shakers and launches, and our take on what it all means.
Everyone might be holding their breath ahead of next month’s Autumn Budget, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t going well for many businesses in the creative industries.
The Design Council’s latest flagship report reveals design is worth £136.7bn in the UK alone – an increase of 40% since 2019. And studios and agencies around the world are betting on AI with serious hires and promotions, paving the way for the next era of creativity. But the AI bet is happening in different directions. Some are bringing in specialists, while others are doubling down on senior humans.
Strategy is moving to the top table, with Pearlfisher hiring its first executive strategy director and FutureBrand making Sam Hollis its most senior strategist worldwide. Plus, getting bigger and joining up is back in fashion: Koto has made its first acquisition with more on the way, and M+C Saatchi Talk has folded PR, search, and AI into a single offer.
Independents are winning pitches like never before. And we’re seeing that it’s not all about London, as ALT moves from Glasgow into Manchester, OWB wins big in Birmingham, and RunPilot comes out of Sheffield. The Design Council’s report says the same thing: design’s value is up 88% in Wales and 67% in the North East. Phew. It’s been a mighty fine month for the industry.
Hires and promotions
Jack De Caluwé returns to Instrument
There’s a homecoming happening over at Instrument. Jack De Caluwé spent nearly nine years at the “digital-first” design agency, left for R/GA where he was ECD, and is now back as chief creative officer. During his impressive career, Jack has led work for Nike, Apple, The New York Times, Patagonia and Netflix. His first stint at Instrument saw him work on EA’s brand platform, plus Notion’s first international campaign. Instrument has also added two Group ECDs: Terence Hobson from EA Sports and Yan Sze Li from MAC Cosmetics.
This comes as Instrument celebrates 20 years in business and was recently named Design Studio of the Year at Campaign US’s 2026 awards. “We’re in one of those rare moments where the canvas is being stretched in every direction… I wanted to be somewhere that sees that as an invitation rather than a disruption,” Jack says.
Jack De Caluwé of Instrument
Pearlfisher hires its first-ever executive strategy director
In a newly created role at Pearlfisher, Natalie Prout joins the London agency. She brings 20 years of brand strategy experience, most recently on the leadership team at JKR, where she looked after clients including AB InBev, Pret, and Unilever. She’s had stints in LA, Amsterdam and Sydney, plus her own ventures So Now What? and Mischief Maker. She completes a new exec team alongside MD William Maughan, ECD Chloé Templeman, and Margot Crosby, newly promoted to executive growth director.
What does this reveal about where Pearlfisher is heading? Craft with strategy, and they’re clearly serious about it. “Brands have never been more challenged to cut through the noise,” says Natalie. “Which is why strategy can’t just answer the easy questions – it needs to spark bold action that stretches projects into partnerships.”
Left to right: Chloé Templeman, Natalie Prout, Margot Crosby & William Maughan
Sam Hollis promoted at FutureBrand
Sam Hollis has become the company’s most senior strategist worldwide while keeping his head of strategy role in London – a title he’s held since 2020. Previously at Interbrand, GOOD Agency, and BrandPie, and client-side at BSkyB, Sam’s new position is about knitting FutureBrand closer into McCann and the Omnicom branding network.
Of the promotion, Global President Simon Hill says: “[Sam] has a rare ability to connect ideas, people and opportunities in ways that create real value for our clients.” Congrats, Sam!
Sam Hollis at FutureBrand
Super Nice welcomes two big names
The Atlanta-based independent was founded in 2025 on the idea that being nice is a winning strategy. Seems like they were right. In just 18 months, it has tripled its team, and it’s become Jazzercise’s agency of record.
First up is Raqib Sheikh, the new CSO. He previously led global strategy for Nike and Jordan Brand at R/GA and Coca-Cola’s North America strategy at VML. And then there’s Tiffany Lynch Kimicata, the new MD, who was behind OREO Doomsday Vault, Walmart’s Greenlight A Vet and Amazon’s The Climate Pledge. She’s also a 2026 Ad Age Account Person of the Year finalist.
While others might be automating, Super Nice is betting on senior humans. “AI has made it easier than ever to make something,” says CCO Jared Kozel. “It hasn’t made it easier to make something people care about.”
Art&Graft nurtures junior talent
Art&Graft has hired Gigi Badeva as a junior designer, following a successful three-month summer internship. It’s part of the motion design studio’s internship programme that runs annually and gives young creatives paid placements at its London HQ.
Gigi is a recent graphic design graduate from Birmingham City University. She apparently has an excellent eye for branding and motion. Congrats, Gigi! Wishing you every success in your creative career.
José Julián Acosta joins LERMA/ as head of production
The Dallas agency hires from Monks, where Acosta was AI solutions director and executive producer. He was previously SVP and director of production at FCB Chicago. His CV includes Caption with Intention, which won the Cannes Lions Titanium Grand Prix. He started out as a Berklee music production graduate from San Juan. So it makes sense that the brief is to bring production thinking earlier into the creative process.
Acosta joins LERMA/’s first CCO, CSO and chief data and intelligence officer, all hired in the past year. That agency is going places, let me tell you. “The question isn’t simply what technology allows us to make faster or more efficiently. It’s how we use these new capabilities to make better work and, ultimately, work people care about,” he says.
José Julián Acosta
SuperHeroes looks to the future
The independent creative agency has appointed AI creative specialist Quim Español as creative director. He’ll report to CEO Django Weisz Blanchetta and work with JIMMY, its talent platform for CGI and AI creators. Wow, things move fast these days.
Español was previously an associate creative director at adidas, creative director at Monks, and partner creative director at CAAPSAI, having started out as an art director at AKQA. It just shows how small this pond really is. Oh, and he won the Digital Young Lions for Spain in 2012.
“In our mission to save the world from boring advertising, we need to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to AI and creativity,” says Django. “Quim brings exactly the expertise, creative ambition and track record we were looking for. He’ll challenge us, our clients and our JIMMY artists to think differently and push the boundaries of what’s possible. We’re excited to have him on board.”
Quim Español at SuperHeroes
Elsewhere
Heaps + Stacks has promoted Esmé Callaghan to creative director, where she’ll lead the London agency’s biggest pitches and push further into storytelling and spatial design. Founder Keziah Wildsmith calls her “an absolute powerhouse”.
Founders Makers has made Merryn Mackinnon its first managing director as it expands into the US and Middle East. Co-founder Nick Horowitz seems pretty chill about it: “I give it a year before I’m surplus to requirements and back on the coffee run.”
Lewis Moberly welcomes James Riley as business partner following stints at JKR, Saffron, Landor, FutureBrand and forpeople. And premium luggage brand Carl Friedrik has hired Santiago de Hoyos as creative director. He joins from Kotn, and before that Monos, where he made the Kismet campaign starring Adrien Brody.
Packaging specialist Tjarks & Tjarks has made two new senior hires: Alex Poulton, who’ll lead European client services, and Donna West, who becomes creative director after 27 years in brand and packaging. Over at Spin, Ellie Aitkin joins Tiny Studios as senior producer from Little Dot Studios. Mike Trueman, meanwhile, has become channel manager at its YouTube agency, Be A Bear.
Esmé Callaghan at Heaps + Stacks
Founders Makers has made Merryn Mackinnon its first managing directorLewis Moberly welcomes James Riley
L-R Donna West & Alex Poulton at Tjarks & Tjarks
Ellie Aitkin and Mike Trueman at Spin
Launches and new ventures
ALT opens in Manchester
Some brilliant news for our home turf. The Glasgow creative media agency has opened a second office at No.1 St Michael’s with Channel 4 as its neighbour. Founded in 2019 by wife and husband Laura and David Haggerty, its clients include UEFA and Whyte & Mackay.
Martin Roberts (10 years at Dentsu) will be running it as business director, and Shivani Kulshrestha joins from Green Park as strategy and planning director. They’ll be advertising for Manchester jobs shortly.
“Like Glasgow, it is an inspiring city of creativity and culture and has become a thriving media hub,” says David.
Yellowzine launches Mad Academy
The arts platform focused on black and brown talent has launched Mad Academy, a free programme to help creatives who are going freelance. It will cover everything from understanding limited companies versus sole traders to rates and marketing, with one-to-one portfolio reviews and studio access through Uncommon, which sponsors the programme alongside Tangerine.
Applications for the current cohort have now closed, but more will be coming soon. Aisha Ayoade, co-founder of Yellowzine, says: “I became freelance in 2024, and honestly it felt like there was a hidden set of rules and regulations that no one would share. Every conversation with a client or potential client felt like I had to advocate for myself in a way that I simply didn’t have the tools for. Luckily for me, I have a brother that’s been a creative freelancer for years, so he was able to tell me what was ‘normal’ and what was… exploitation. But not everyone has that – we’re basically trying to be that sibling for other people in the same shoes.”
Haus of Thrills moves into music with JP Cooper
Kyle Wilkinson and his studio will lead the art direction for the singer-songwriter’s first independent chapter after Island Records. That will mean music videos, album artwork and the wider visual world. Cooper, if you didn’t know, has more than six billion streams. Blimey, Kyle. What a client to land.
“Working with Kyle has given me the freedom to go back to the basics of why I first started making music, creating something from a place of joy,” Cooper says.
“The aim isn’t to reinvent who JP is,” says Wilkinson, “but to build on what already makes him unique.”
M+C Saatchi Talk: The Conversation Converter
AI is changing the role and value of earned media (gulp), so M+C Saatchi Talk has launched The Conversation Converter. It’s a new strategic framework that brings together PR, search, content and AI discoverability based on this whole premise that coverage, reviews, creator content and wider brand conversations increasingly influence “not just what people think about brands, but how they are understood, surfaced and recommended by search engines and AI platforms”.
It was developed by head of intelligence Marine Escande with new analyst Chloé Walker. “Many organisations still treat PR, search and social content as separate disciplines, when in reality they are deeply interconnected,” says Escande.
The news comes as the agency celebrates its 25th anniversary. MD Amaya Alvarez adds: “This isn’t about replacing great communications with technology. It’s about bringing together earned media, search, content and AI into a single strategic approach.”
MD Amaya Alvarez
Rebrand of the month
RunPilot by The Engine Room
The Huddersfield studio has created the name, proposition and identity for an AI platform built by University of Sheffield PhD researchers Joseph Hammond and Thomas Cowley. But don’t get all agitated just yet. The tool models infrastructure routes to speed up clean energy planning. Five years in the making, it has now secured £140,000 in early-stage funding from the university board. And so, it was the right time to address its branding. “For a deep tech spin-out like ours to be taken seriously, we needed a clearer, more commercially astute identity that matched the impact our platform can have,” says Hammond.
The Engine Room’s Darren Evans adds: “Often the biggest challenge is translating a complex proposition into a clear, credible public presence that makes sense for both technical and non-technical audiences.”
L-R: Peter Evans, Thomas Cowley, Joseph Hammond
Mergers and acquisitions
Koto acquires Stereo Creative
It’s the first studio in a new Koto Group, which now includes 230 people across London, Berlin, LA, San Francisco, New York, Portland, Dubai and Sydney. And to think it was only founded in 2015 by James Greenfield, Caroline Matthews and Jowey Roden. Today it counts Airbnb, Amazon, Microsoft, LA28 and Instagram’s new wordmark among its work.
Yes, there’s been investment from Westbridge. That happened in 2025. And they say more acquisitions are coming. But Stereo is the first announcement. Nearly two decades old, it brings campaigns and content production, plus Nike, Arsenal, FIFA, Converse, the 49ers and the PWHL into the fold. “Welcoming Stereo is the first step in building a group of values-aligned, founder-led companies with the pursuit of excellence at their heart,” says Greenfield.
Koto acquires Stereo Creative. Work for Converse
Bray Leino and krow Group become one
Both are MISSION Group agencies, and they merged under the Bray Leino name, as of this month. They bring together more than 300 specialists across strategy, creative, CX, media, CRM and production. Kate Cox is CEO and Wayne Deakin is CCO. krow’s John Quarrey, meanwhile, becomes chief growth officer at MISSION.
“Our clients are facing increasingly complex challenges and are looking for partners who can connect thinking across the full marketing mix,” says Cox. “Bringing [the agencies] together gives us a broader integrated offer with much more depth behind it.”
[L-R] Kate Cox, CEO, and Wayne Deakin, Chief Creative Officer
Wins and partnerships
Ourselves wins the London Museum launch
The remote-first independent founded in 2019 by Steven Bennett-Day and Aaron Howard beat four shortlisted agencies from more than 70 “expressions of interest”. It will create the destination campaign for the Smithfield opening in late November, building on Uncommon’s brand platform.
The London Museum development cost £437m and expects two million visitors a year. Over 100,000 Londoners even helped to shape it. The win marks Ourselves’ biggest cultural commission to date.
Born Social wins Kerrygold globally
The global social agency won a four-way pitch to handle the account for Kerrygold, covering the UK, Germany, Ireland and the US, plus Pilgrim’s Choice in the UK. Interestingly, Kerrygold became a billion-dollar brand over in the States in 2025. Abbey Mills from Born Social says they relish “the chance to transform Kerrygold’s social presence at a global level, while keeping it grounded in local nuance”.
Universal Favourite wins LION
The Sydney studio has been appointed lead design partner for LION, the Australian drinks giant behind XXXX, Little Creatures and Four Pillars Gin. It comes as design director Lucy McGinley returns from the UK, Joanna Nicoll joins from London, and James Cooper is appointed head of creative partnerships.
Universal Favourite wins LION
In other news
NewGen has won Premier Foods and will take Mr Kipling, The Spice Tailor, Sharwood’s and Loyd Grossman under its wing, creating organic-first, trend-led content for TikTok and Instagram. And OWB Creative in Birmingham has won three new clients: Piaggio UK, AI platform Unloq and Chester lender Breeze Capital.
Industry news
Design Council unveils Design Economy 2026
In its flagship research report, the Design Council reveals what design is worth to the UK. It’s only carried out every three years, but it gives real insight into how things are and where they’re heading.
The headline number this time is £136.7bn. That’s how much design added to the UK economy in 2023. It’s about £1 in every £20. Phew. Even better, it’s up 40% since 2019, which means design has grown almost twice as fast as the economy as a whole. And hey, it’s now even bigger than retail.
Jobs tell a similar story. Around 2.27 million people work in the design economy – nearly 300,000 more than in 2020.
And this is the bit that might surprise you… Most of that value doesn’t come from agencies and studios, but from banks, the NHS, manufacturers, retailers and councils. Companies, as you know, are building their own design teams. And those in-house roles are growing three times faster than jobs in the design industry itself.
OK, not to get carried away: the money figures only run until 2023, before most of us had even used an AI tool, so we won’t see AI’s impact until the next report in 2029. And prices rose by 22% over those four years, so some of that growth above is inflation rather than more work. Also, rather depressingly, three-quarters of designers are men. Only 2% are black, compared with 5% of the UK’s working population. Plus, the number of teens taking Design and Technology at GCSE has fallen by 68% in a decade.
The Design Council is now calling on the government, businesses and public bodies to invest in design skills and in design outside the big cities.
Creative Trade Forum launches to sell UK creativity abroad
A new group has been set up to help British creative businesses win more work overseas. The Creative Trade Forum brings the government and industry together around the same table, and it covers advertising, design, architecture, film, TV, gaming, music and AI.
It’s co-chaired by Francesca Hegyi, who runs the Edinburgh International Festival, and Michael Frohlich, who is chief marketing officer at WPP. Landor designed its identity. “Britain does not have a creativity challenge,” says Michael. “It has a scale challenge.” It will be interesting to see what comes of it.
The key takeaways
So what does it all mean? Mostly that the industry is ploughing on despite the economic gloom. Studios and agencies are making big decisions again, especially about AI and who sits at the top. Whether you agree with LERMA/ and SuperHeroes or side with Super Nice, the appointments suggest confidence is returning.
What’s more, their moves and shakes all make the same promise: make work people care about. No one is explicitly selling speed, but I suspect this is part of the package now.
Size and postcode seem to matter less. Especially when you consider a remote-first independent is launching the London Museum. Or a Glasgow agency is setting up in Manchester. And there’s Koto, an independent, celebrating its first acquisition.
Yes, it’s a month packed with senior appointments, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t still happening at junior level. It’s just not something the PRs tend to share as much, so take it all with a pinch of salt.
And then there’s the Design Council’s much-anticipated report, telling us design is now worth more than retail. Yet entries for Design and Technology at GCSE have fallen by over two-thirds in the last decade. Something surely has to be done about that. Without the juniors, we’ll have no seniors in 10 years’ time. See you next month!
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