Audi came to us looking for a campaign to promote their sponsorship of the Hamilton Island Race Week, a yacht race over the Spring months off the coast of Queensland.

I went to work searching for a way to connect Audi to the race in a meaningful, authentic way. High tech cars and yacht racing don’t have much in common except very rich people… or so it seemed.

New Audi car models were about to arrive in Australia at the time and had cutting edge technology, including one patented feature called Audi Pre-Sense. It was an AI driven sensor which could detect and predict a collision before it happened and thus make an evasive move before a human could even react. Using speed and trajectory, it was able to calculate this in real time with its onboard CPU.

In addition, it turns out the Hamilton Race is constantly stopped when a mother and calf humpback whale passes through the strait, after all its right on the annual migration time. Eureka.

Using Audi’s algorithm of Pre-Sense, we create Audi Whale-Sense. Keeping the race going and the whales safe, yacht teams are directed away from the whales path when there is an imminent collision detected with the use of drone pilots and a ground team. We create a short video on the achievement, an emotional story as Audi’s technology enables a better world for humans and nature to coexist.

This was apart of a greater pitch, turns out Audi never awarded a winner, so this was never made.

Client: Audi

Agency: We Are Social

Role: Creative concept

An integrated social activation campaign for Mondelez. They gave the thumbs up to our risqué and daring approach to lure the younger demographic with this tasty proposition to 'Lick for it' to promote Double Stuff Oreos. Our campaign was here to launch this idea of lick racing to settle an argument.

Anyone could submit an argument to the platform that they want to see settled once and for all, the public browse through the arguments and cast their votes with a lick of their tongue and wait to see the final results. The best arguments were honoured with a real packet of Oreos posted to them with their argument baked into the cookies. Brilliant stuff, although really sugary.

The site was fully localised into 7 different markets including Greek cyrillic characters and fully responsive across mobile to retina desktop.

Matt (my copywriter) and I developed an addiction to the Oreos which we are still trying to kick but it was well worth it. Results for the campaign were through the roof and we even had a French radio station adopt the campaign and host daily Lick Races on air.

Just to make a few things clear: We confirmed Predator would beat Terminator in a fight, Empire Strikes Back was the best out of the trilogy and hipster beards with a waxed curly moustache are out.

Client: Mondelez

Agency: AKQA London

Role: Creative team (Senior Art direction with copywriter)

As a passionate adventurer I found myself at Burning Man in 2011 on a last minute whim. It was love at first art. I returned year after year for my yearly dose of innovation, creativity, reconnection and curiosity.

Soon enough my photography was being noticed by the community and the founding organisation, until they reached out and invited me to join the newly formed Documentation Team. I couldn’t say no.

It’s been one of the greatest experiences and projects I have ever worked on and continuing to work on every year. Burning Man is at the cutting edge of fashion, design, art and hosts some of the world’s most innovative disruptors and thinkers.

I usually don’t have to mention this but since we just met, my annual leave will be from August 24th to September 14 indefinitely.

Can you spot me in the photos below?

After an 8 year obsession with photographing the phenomenal Northern Lights and winning Astronomy Photographer of the Year: Aurorae category, I finally decided to make it into a business! Photographic tuition workshop tours in the Arctic, guided by myself, it’s a great break from the office.

I launched commercial tours in late November 2014 and run them through to 2016. Putting my 8 years of knowledge to use, I was able to create package tours that beat the local guides because I pull on the best of all the locations across Northern Scandinavia.

I’ve had much success with my footage from working with GoPro, being featured on UK TV and winning a stack of prestigious photography competitions as well as currently in the rough edit for BBC’s Frozen Planet 2. And yes, Sir David Attenborough will be narrating over my footage if make footage makes the final cut.

If you don't build your dreams someone will hire you to build theirs. Here's to making a passion into a business!

One of the largest scale web platforms I have ever worked on - this site had dynamically feature every car of MINI and to work across all browsers, all devices and all markets of the universe. Not a small task.

That said we finally succeeded 4 years from the first pitch date and the site now lives on thanks to future proofing the designs!

Hosting a stag party, or worse - the actual wedding? Afraid of a catering nightmare? Don't worry, Heineken is here to save you! Impress all of your guests with custom designed Heieneken bottles that can have your designs, messages and images printed on them! Genius!

Not a designer? Fear not, we ensured every occasion was covered and more. And as a special thanks from Heineken, we made our own AKQA bottle for our end of year party that featured all the staffs 400 names on each bottle and everyone had one delivered to their desk one morning. Good times!

Panasonic released their very first Lumix here on this day. Its the grandfather to the current range and featured 8x optical zoom upon release which give the major SLRs a run for their money. Hence, we decided to accentuate the positive!

We scale up everyday objects to a huge size and place them randomly around the cities of the UK over night, then sat back and let the press and social media do the rest!

A giant conker, pigeon, traffic cone, coffee cup and park bench were constructed for the campaign.

A great successful promotion for the Lumix which had over 120 online and offline branded publications from the stunt. The Lumix range still lives on today.

Check out the video below for the journey we took!

Such an international product needs an international platform. Available in pretty much every market possible, the Heineken Global platform was no small task. 

Heineken is a very iconic beer with an extensive history (dating back to before prohibition in America) which demands a comprehensive site to represent their brand.

With different markets having different local alcohol advertising laws it was a challenge to keep a consistent design and user journey with age gateways and image restrictions, but by the very end - victory worth having.

A small video social post for Westpac, who said banks are boring? I always like to push brands and give them a warm, entertaining side - after all, the best advertising isn’t advertising. Much time went into finding that right copy line combination.

From iPhone, iPad portrait and landscape to Android to Blackberry, we developed the most comprehensive app suite known to online mobile banking! Scores of developers from all countries came together for 7 months while we produced not only a 100% secure app suite, but an app suite that was slick, animated, beautifully designed and well executed. 

The app also had to be completely re-skinned for RBS, Ulster and Isle of Man Bank. Any content errors would be replicated across all platforms, editions, devices and orientations - leaving no room for any mistakes. Most people don't get excited about online banking but I was!

Tube ads are effective because the copy has a much higher percentage of full reads compared to magazine or billboard ads as commuters occupy themselves with anything they can see.

This pro bona work was satisfying to make and brings those positive fulfilment vibes that your work is actually helping someone rather than selling, something don't usual get in our industry.