Attik
ATTIK began in 1986 with James Sommerville and Simon Needham, two unemployed graphic designers and street artists in Huddersfield, UK, who turned a Prince's Trust (now The King's Trust) loan into the seed capital for their own agency, launched, famously, in the attic of James's grandmother's terraced house. That scrappy, self-funded start shaped the culture that followed: an outsider's agency built on graphic experimentation rather than inherited client relationships or traditional ad-industry pedigree. From that single attic bedroom in the north of England, Sommerville and Needham grew ATTIK into a multi-national network of creative studios in Huddersfield, Leeds, London, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sydney, a trajectory from two inexperienced teenage founders and a small loan to a business eventually acquired by the global communications network Dentsu.
Simon Needham
Noise – Books. 1995-2005
A collection of experimental design works designed to push the creative boundaries of ATTIK's global designers and allow them to explore the future, before it becomes commercial. Each Noise edition since 1995 was designed to be a stage where creatives at ATTIK open themselves up to questions. "We were not afraid to try and fail, because the results always led to somewhere new," said James Sommerville.
Editorial – Wired Magazine and more. 1998-2005
Experimental editorial print work gave ATTIK designers room to express their own agency style inside a commercial publication. Wired Magazine, MacUser, Design annual book covers etc. “It felt like digital pro-bono and testing Photoshop at the same time," said Simon Needham. Everyone gained. “It all fed back into our commercial work the same way Noise did. I suppose it was 'earned media’ before that was a thing.”
Ford 24.7 – Concept car. 2000.
Nine years before the first iPhone, the Ford 24.7 concept car dashboard displayed email, video phone, camera and fax as simple readable graphic icons on a touch display. Automotive media called it out in 2014 as a design-thinking exercise that had guessed the shape of mobile computing a decade early. "People ask, did ATTIK invent apps? I say, probably," said Simon Needham. "It fed off the same instinct Noise did, let's build the thing before the market asks for it. "
(Toyota) Scion. 2003-2006
Toyota initially went looking for an advertising agency to launch a car built to repel as much as attract. Instead of a traditional Madison Avenue agency, they found ATTIK, and liked its reputation for pushing boundaries. The resulting Scions US launch campaign broke the rules of automotive comms, with street-level guerrilla activations, early influencer engagement and viral stunts turned the Scion square-design uniqueness into the brand's whole campaign and identity. “We were either a youth agency that understood good design, or a design agency that understood the youth at the time," reflected Simon Needham.
The Coca-Cola Company – VP Global Design. 2013-2018
"I wasn't sure what I was doing the first day I walked into Coke headquarters in Atlanta, GA. They seemed very big and slow, so I decided to make them smaller and faster.” James Sommerville took the chief role following the sale of ATTIK, spending five years educating Coke on how to be more entrepreneurial, move quicker than an oil tanker, and source new ways to engage unknown creatives. He led creative strategy and execution for the world's most recognized brand and other iconic brands across its portfolio. “My greatest work is not on a can or a bottle, although I have some great cans! But how we changed the definition of design at Coke," said James Sommerville.
