Related Posts
Additional Posts in Opinions about Agencies
Thoughts on DAVID Miami and/or GUT?
Are there any good agencies in Iowa?
Anyone heard/know anything about POD sf lately?
Thoughts on Virtue?
How’s Decoded as a place to work?
What’s going on at Sapient Razorfish NYC?
POP in Seattle?
Hi, any thoughts on FIG?
New to Fishbowl?
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
Guys, be careful. You're giving me too much hope.
Nope
Feeling uninspired, too. Why does this city not have the same variety in clients and ad culture as other cities?
And because the culture is awful. When no one talks to each other it’s hard to get momentum behind creative endeavors.
ACD2 - if there is a design culture here, I haven’t been able to tap into it in 18 months. I’ve lived in Minneapolis and NYC, and both places were just saturated with excited, sociable creative folk. I’m planning my exit ASAP.
Absolutely not!
I have no idea what you think doesn’t suck, but these shops have a local and national presence that isn’t too bad: Mekanism, POSSIBLE , Digital Kitchen, VML. A couple decent Seattle based shops who work on national clients: Cole&Weber, Tether (they’ve been working with Under Armour and have done some nice branding work for Gatorade), WongDoody
That’s Unpossible! - Ralph Wiggum
@ID1 figuring that out. I’ve only been here 5 months now. Doesn’t seem like there’s a design culture here, either. T or F?
Freelancing is harder here. It never feels worth it. The projects you're needed for are generally the ones that full-time people didn't fight to get. I've also been burned freelancing here and ended up not getting paid for my work. It was my own fault for working without a contract in place.
As far as agency culture, it's non-existent. My first agency here had a solid culture but it's since been crushed by new leadership.
Working on figuring out the DM process.
ACD2, it’s a great question. I really don’t know, but my guess would be leadership. In NY, I sought out agencies because I wanted to work for specific industry leaders. Sophie Kleber at Huge, Paula Scher at Pentagram — high visibility folks that generated excitement and ideas in the industry. Maybe Seattle lacks these thought-leaders, or maybe they’re just staying quiet.
To that point, there's actually no creative leaders that I know of in Seattle that I find myself thinking about. I can't think of a single person I feel crazy jazzed to work under. People on here are always asking about leaders in other cities and it's just not a thing you hear about around Seattle.
Hum was cool, but they just closed.
Possible doesn’t suck
To add.. lived there for a yr & a half. Lots of the people I worked with went client side. Possible might as well be a Crm agency. It’s mostly below the line.
So much for this year’s ADDYS! 😆
Because it’s driven by engineers... and because there are so many opportunities to go client-side
ACD2, You're definitely correct. There's an ok art scene here and I've noticed that most of my design partners usually have a passion project outside of work. Do you mind me asking where you're at?
@OP I’m big into the passion projects, myself. But the side hustle I work on is carried over from my time in PDX.
It seems like there are people in Seattle who want more culture, I guess I’m curious why it’s not naturally happening? Even client side should still want to create a design community or an ad culture. Do freelancers exist here? Are they successful at floating?
Happily DM you what shop I’m at.
We suck. "Consultant" is senior leadership or HR.