Jayne Connell\u2019s first experience of the design industry was a student placement at Carroll, Dempsey & Thirkell. \u201cThey had this stunning office just off Chancery Lane where everything was designed within an inch of its life,\u201d she remembers.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach day you\u2019d put out your lay-out pad, with a black pen on the side. And there had to be nothing else on the desk \u2013 you weren\u2019t allowed a cup or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
She thrived in that perfectionist environment, coming back to work there after she graduated. Connell went on to work at Carter Wong, and was later part of the agency merger that created Futurebrand, where she rose to associate director.<\/p>\n
But after her husband, Nick Downes, started his own agency from the couple\u2019s kitchen table, Connell left to join him. She is now director of strategy at Interstate<\/a>, where she has spent the past 25 years building a culture that combines sharp commercial thinking with creative excellence.<\/p>\n Interstate\u2019s work for F1, featured in its new book<\/p>\n The agency has worked a lot in the motorsport world, with car brands like McLaren, Lamborghini and Chinese company Nio, as well as governing bodies Formula E and the FIA, which runs Formula One. Away from the automotive sector, Interstate has also worked with Google, Unilever and the NHS.<\/p>\n As the studio publishes a new book celebrating its 25th year, we spoke with Jayne about her career, the current state of branding, and what she wishes she\u2019d known when she and Downes started their own studio.<\/p>\n Yes, I always had a business mind as well as a graphic mind.<\/p>\n At Carroll, Dempsey & Thirkell we were sort of kept in the back, but at Carter Wong they would get you involved. I remember being invited to a meeting at Woolworth\u2019s, and being petrified. I didn\u2019t know what to wear to a client meeting.<\/p>\n But I must have passed the test. I know a lot of design creatures don\u2019t want to do that sort of thing, but I was ambitious and I wanted to prove my worth.<\/p>\n A bookshelf in the Interstate studio<\/p>\n Working on Formula One opened my eyes to a lot of stuff. We spent a lot of time sitting with incredibly influential business people, like Bernie Ecclestone, who are tough, direct and very demanding.<\/p>\n But by then, I could stand my ground. I got shouted at a lot, but I learned to not be a \u201cyes person.\u201d<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t feel great sometimes, and obviously we have to pay the bills.<\/p>\n But when you push your team for excellence, and then you turn around and say, \u201cThe client likes this idea and we\u2019re just going to go with it,\u201d then the whole team gets disenfranchised.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t get us excited. And nine times out of ten, it\u2019s done us a favour to say exactly what we think. We\u2019ve lost projects by doing it, but often the client has come back later for something else, because we made an impression.<\/p>\n More and more, I believe the only way we\u2019re going to get a voice is by having an opinion.<\/p>\n It\u2019s like everything\u2019s changed and nothing\u2019s changed, because it\u2019s about people.<\/p>\n There are so many brilliant agencies. We all do brilliant work. It comes down to relationships. It\u2019s how you build trust with your client, so they come back to work with you when they move between companies.<\/p>\n A big part of business development now is what we call transcend. At the end of a project, we ask anyone who has worked on it, what else could we do, based on all the things you have learned about this company, and this sector?<\/p>\n Our work is not about indulgently beautifying things \u2013 our teams know their stuff. And so we\u2019ve extended quite a bit of our work, with clients like the Premier League, by suggesting what the next piece might be.<\/p>\n Interstate\u2019s work for Bapco Energies<\/p>\n We\u2019d never dare tell them that we know more than them, because we definitely don\u2019t. But we use our skills to ask the right questions, get into their mindset ,and understand the business, so we can do an excellent job of wrapping that in some form of an experience.<\/p>\n And you know, return on investment is a tough one within branding. If you redesign a packet of biscuits, and it sells more on the shelf the next day, great.<\/p>\n With branding, it\u2019s reputation management. You\u2019re not going to know if it\u2019s worked for years.<\/p>\n So we have to create our own return on investment, to keep checking, are we doing the best job for this client? And I think we drive that into our client services team and into our creative team.<\/p>\n Communication is the biggest thing. The whole team owns the client, so pick up the phone. Go and have those conversations.<\/p>\n Listening to everyone\u2019s voices is really important, from production to client services. Creatives can\u2019t rule the roost.<\/p>\n I love creatives dearly, and I was one. I can see the ones off in the corner who haven\u2019t listened to the last five minutes of a meeting because they\u2019re onto an idea.<\/p>\n And sometimes that\u2019s fab, but sometimes they\u2019re missing some important parts of the strategy.<\/p>\n Again, it\u2019s all changed but nothing\u2019s changed. There\u2019s a shitload of channels now and so many ways you can express something.<\/p>\n But you\u2019ve still got to come up with a great idea, and you\u2019ve got to be able to justify it to the client. That\u2019s the bit I think will be the creative currency going forward.<\/p>\n Interstate\u2019s work for the Premier League<\/p>\n With ChatGPT, you can ask it to come up with a strategy, and it will churn something out. But you still need human understanding to bring it all together.<\/p>\n We bang on a lot about the fact that a brand isn\u2019t a logo, but it\u2019s true. It\u2019s an approach, a personality, a set of guiding criteria to make a lot of judgments, one of which will be the visual expression.<\/p>\n We\u2019re debating at the moment where the value goes. How much will a client pay for strategy, for identity, for campaigns, for production?<\/p>\n We still think the value is in the big idea, in coming up with something that someone else hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t like the idea of strategists sitting in a room doing strategy. For me, that\u2019s not a creative process. You need the creative mind, the UX mind to feed into it. A good strategist can say, \u201cYou\u2019ve got something there. I know how to mix it in.\u201d<\/p>\n You\u2019ve got to have a sense of how that brand strategy is going to be interpreted into a creative world. I think some strategies are quite weak because they\u2019re done in isolation and then it\u2019s, \u201cHere\u2019s the strategy. Now turn that into creative\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n It comes down to listening and relationships again. The best strategy comes from asking the right question to your client.<\/p>\n Probably the work for Nio, this amazing electric car company in China founded by William Li.<\/p>\n He hired Martin Leach, the ex-president of Ford Europe, who came to us and said, \u201cI haven\u2019t got a name. I haven\u2019t got a car. I haven\u2019t got a design. I just have a wish and that was it.\u201d<\/p>\n Interstate\u2019s work for Nio Sport<\/p>\n We had to build the brand story and the proof points before anything else. So we said, let\u2019s start by sponsoring a winning motorsport team. And we created Nio Sport, with lots of branding, visuals, film, websites, events and goodness knows what else.<\/p>\n When they launched the car 18 months later, another agency did the actual automotive brand, but it all started with the work we did.<\/p>\n They practised something called \u201cvision action upgrade,\u201d which is a business approach where you have an idea, you action it really quickly, and then you look at where it needs upgrading.<\/p>\n It petrified us to start with, because for designers it can feel like a bit of a nightmare. We\u2019re used to checking things to death before they go out \u2013 the spelling, the word spaces, the colour, the motion edit.<\/p>\n But we came to love it. It tested us on all levels, but it keeps things moving. You just need the right people in the room who don\u2019t think, \u201cOh that\u2019s a mistake.\u201d They think, \u201cHow can we improve it?\u201d<\/p>\n Interstate\u2019s work for Nio Sport, featured in the new book<\/p>\n I think historically, creative agencies were fairly terrible at doing appraisals. You got the odd random coffee somewhere and then you realised that was your appraisal.<\/p>\n And there was this whole thing about focusing on people\u2019s weaknesses or things they didn\u2019t want to do. We threw that away quite early on here.<\/p>\n For a middleweight designer to become a senior, they shouldn\u2019t have to start presenting to clients. Sometimes we can see that every bone in someone\u2019s body doesn\u2019t want to do that.<\/p>\n So how can we play to someone\u2019s strengths, so they can still be a senior?<\/p>\n Interstate\u2019s work for F1, featured in its new book<\/p>\n Another key thing is to recognise that there is a difference between a design mind, a creative mind, and a creative technologist mind.<\/p>\n You have pure graphic designers, although they don\u2019t teach that as much anymore. There\u2019s a creative mind, which is a lot more conceptual. They think in stories, but they can\u2019t necessarily design something. And then you have the people who are great at the UX\/UI stuff.<\/p>\n It\u2019s about helping guide people in their careers, especially if they they think they are one thing, but we think they\u2019d be better focusing on something else.<\/p>\n I wish I had thought more about the importance \u2013 and the challenge \u2013 of building a leadership team for the future.<\/p>\n It takes time, patience and instinct to recognise the people who share your vision and values. Finding those like-minded business souls early on is essential, positioning them to carry the business forward, especially in an ever-changing political and economic landscape.<\/p>\n Then comes the difficult part \u2013 the boardroom conversations, the consequences when things go wrong, the promises that never materialise. Around the table, you\u2019re friends, but you\u2019re also bound by responsibility \u2013 and that balance can be hard to maintain.<\/p>\n If you run a creative agency, you\u2019ve found the ones who can make an idea work. But when you start searching for your next generation of leaders, you\u2019re looking for that rare individual who can hold both imagination and responsibility in the same hand, and not drop either.<\/p>\n The new Interstate bookWere you always interested in the business side of the industry as well as the creative side?<\/h5>\n
That\u2019s an important skill isn\u2019t it \u2013 to know when to challenge clients?<\/h5>\n
What are the biggest changes you\u2019ve seen in the industry in the past 25 years?<\/h5>\n
How do you build this trust with clients?<\/h5>\n
How do you think about the balance between the different teams that make up an agency?<\/h5>\n
How do you see the current state of branding?<\/h5>\n
Do you think the role of strategy has changed? Has it become overcomplicated?<\/h5>\n
Is there a piece of work the studio has done that really sums up the Interstate approach?<\/h5>\n
What did you learn working on that project?<\/h5>\n
Compared to your days as a young designer, how has creative leadership changed?<\/h5>\n
What is one thing you wish you\u2019d known when starting Interstate 25 years ago?<\/h5>\n
\nThe new Interstate book packaging
\nThe new Interstate book<\/p>\n