Dan Brown says the ability to work anywhere will allow studios to “find talented people from all over, and make a company that’s bound not by location but instead by values.”
Name: Daniel Brown
Company: Seattle’s World Famous
What does World Famous do?
World Famous is a project-based creative agency. We uncover the humanity in brands to make them less intimidating and more accessible to today’s consumers.
What is your job title?
Executive Creative Director
What does that entail? Please describe.
I manage all creative operations within our company — from script through production all the way to post. That includes marketing and strategy.
Equinox “Boxing Anthem”
What would surprise people the most about what falls under that title?
I don’t know if it’s much of a surprise, but my job is pretty all-encompassing, meaning I don’t spend all of my time doing creative work. In fact, huge parts of my time need to be devoted to the success of the business as well.
What have you learned over the years about running a business?
To listen. We all walk into everything in life with preconceived notions, but the best thing we can do is be open, hear people and follow that up with research.
A lot of it must be about trying to keep employees and clients and happy. How do you balance that?
I don’t think those two things are at odds as often as I hear. Ultimately, we all want to do good work that delivers a clear message and makes an impact. My job is to make sure that we all see that commonality. When clients demand, for example, a bigger logo, I ask my employees to look deeper. Is it possible that the client is looking for a “quick fix” because the brand hasn’t been clearly communicated? Or is it something else?
How has the company handled the COVID-19 crisis and working from home?
Luckily, we’ve been slammed since February and started working from home long before any mandate. Of course, there are days when the kids won’t leave you alone or when the never-ending Slack calls wear thin, but we were already working remotely with freelancers and some staff before the pandemic, so the transition has been fairly smooth. We do miss each other and make every effort to stay connected and feel like we’re all in this together.
One silver lining of all of this that I’m very excited about is to see what this new way of working can mean going forward. I’d love to have more staff living outside of our area, find talented people from all over, and make a company that’s bound not by location but instead by values.
Any tips for those in a similar position?
Set people up for success, push them out of their comfort zone, allow them to fail, be there for them if they don’t succeed. We cover ourselves, so we’re always giving our clients what they need, but we want to try unexpected people and ideas.
What’s your favorite part of the job?
There isn’t one thing for me. I love ideation and creation. I love production and post. Working with clients. Working with creatives.
What’s your least favorite?
To me, there’s nothing worse than getting a bad script or concept, because no amount of gloss or production muscle can fix a fundamentally flawed idea. That’s actually why we’ve switched to doing agency work — the most important thing is to control the creative that you make.
Can you name some recent jobs?
We’ve been doing a lot of work for Amazon lately — mostly Amazon Web Services (AWS) and some Amazon Fire TV. We’ve also recently started doing some work to help save the local music scene in Seattle.
What are three pieces of technology you can’t live without?
A Bic pen. My Wacom Cintiq monitor. Notes on my phone.
