Creative Characters Ep. 1: James Sommerville.
James Sommerville.
On Creative Characters, we meet the people and personalities behind the brands, campaigns, and designs we love. You can listen to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and wherever quality podcasts are available.
In our first episode, we talked with James Sommerville (@jamessommerville). James’ three-plus decade as a design leader began in his grandmother’s attic, where he founded his first agency (with a little help from Prince Charles), all the way to major brands like The Coca-Cola Company. Today, he is the co-founder of KNOWN_UNKOWN and is working to transform the future of creative talent.
The conversation ranges from James’ career to his ideas about the future of creative work, community, and work/life balance in a post-pandemic world.
“I think as humans, we like maps. We like having some kind of visual ‘something’ that instructs us where to go. During a workday, maybe that’s an agenda. We’re very wired to look at our lives like that.
“Now we’re working, living, playing within the same four walls. Almost feels like 24 hours a day. So, how do we design that day to make sure we know when to turn a few things off and put the, put the phone down, turn the screen off and just have some think time as well?”