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James Easley - We Love...

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We Love is a strategic creative agency with digital at its heart. We offer a smarter way to connect and create resonance with audiences, across multiple digital platforms. At We Love our imaginations have no limits and we work collaboratively to make sure that our clients always shine. We understand that influence and change are only available with reason and stimulus, and we provide both.

When and why did you join?
I started We Love 4.5 years ago with friend and life long irritant, Mark Anderson. We’d seen the highs and lows of the industry over the past 17 years and we’d always said that we’d do something together business wise. We saw the start of the recession as an opportunity for a new breed of agency – agile, responsive and one that held true to the reasons of why we started in the industry – great clients, a great crew and fantastic work.

What do you actually do?
Solve shit.

How did you get started in the industry?
After an HND in Graphic Design I came out of college in the middle of the nineties recession. I went freelance initially, then hooked up with a local printer and merged offerings. After 2-3 years of Mac-by-day and one-colour-Heidelberg-offset-as-sleeping-companion-by-night, I’d taken enough of an entrepreneurial battering to last me a few years and hooked up with a local design agency. 17 years later and I’m back to my self-starter roots.

What would you be doing if you weren't in the industry?
I’d pare my life back. What are the simplest truths that we could live by? Family. Friends. Food, warmth and shelter. And strip out the bullshit. I’d work in advertising.

What's your current favourite piece of creative work?
One of this years winning projects from ‘Future Lions’; ‘Post from Japan’ by Kristofer Salsborn and Rickard Beskow. A project aimed at encouraging visitors to Japan to share images during their stay, in order to revitalise the country’s tourist industry. Simple and insightful, both strategically and creatively.

What do you love about your job?
Solving shit. I don’t care whether it’s ‘on project’ or at a company level. I like to understand the ‘truth’ of a situation – the pure line that makes sense of the madness.

If you could give one piece of advice for someone starting out, what would it be?
Whether you have Jedi skills in design or you’re a strategic genius, none of it matters unless you have application – direction, focus and a self activating attitude. Everything we look for in our talent.

If you have one Super power what would it be?
Sadly this came up in discussion with the wife the other day. It was the morning after a rather heavy night and conversation was starting to veer savagely spinward. We identified that the worst super power you could have would be the ability to foresee the changing of a traffic light to green a fraction of a second before it happened. Essentially ‘Banal Portency’. A potentially amazing gift, but with shit execution. Outside of Banal Portency (which I’d still prefer to having no Super power), I’d opt for the Power of err... Sleep. I have two kids.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
An internet meme.

What was your worst job and what did you learn from it?
Hmm… Worst job ever was washing dishes in a local restaurant at 14. I learnt never to trust burly lorry drivers that offer to buy you a glass of wine in your lunch break.

You have already worked with some amazing brands, who would you like to work with next?
Heineken. Honda. Adidas.

Your favourite app or website?
Favourite app is two-fold: Favourite game – Air Supremacy – verging on console standards. Favourite productivity app – ThinkBook – sublime and seriously powerful. However, we’re mid-way through the development of a very intuitive, ‘physical’, task based app that’ll soon become my daily workhorse.

Facebook or Twitter?
Facebook, for its window into peoples’ lives. Twitter for its curation and peer recommendation capabilities. Pinterest for strategy infographics and pictures of cats.

Website: welovedigital.com

Twitter: @welove_digital

 

 

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