Why Craft Is Integral with Seamus Higgins

With 25 years’ experience across three continents and multiple disciplines, Seamus has built his career on a love of creative solutions that don’t feel like advertising, and the uncompromising craft of their delivery.

Recognised on AdAge’s Creative All-stars list, he’s lead multiple award winning projects, including the world’s most awarded campaign in 2018, the Palau Pledge, which in addition to being awarded D&AD’s Design Black Pencil of the Decade, picked up two D&AD Black Pencils and three Cannes Lions Grand Prix. He has also led one of Australia’s largest accounts, Defence Force Recruiting, to the most successful two years in their history, winning a Grand Effie.

Seamus has judged at multiple shows, including AWARD Awards, Cannes Lions, New York Festivals, D&AD, One Show APAC, was Jury President for Digital & Mobile at Spikes Asia, and has spoken at numerous local and international events, including New York Advertising Week and Cannes Lions.

Seamus believes that there has never been a more exciting time to invent new ways to connect brands and humans. As an industry our powers have never been greater. And with that power comes the responsibility to shape a better world.

Person

I think I'm probably a blend of strategic and intuitive. Strategic in the sense that I believe that what we do ultimately is find new ways to solve problems. So I love truly interrogating all aspects of the challenge that we’re presented with - all the inputs and contexts - seeking to understand the human and cultural factors that feed into the world of that problem. I think if we can identify a unique challenge, it brings us closer to a solution that feels new, which is ultimately the thing that drives me the most.

And then, from the point of view of being intuitive, I love to be able to follow my gut and trust where something is leading me. I have confidence in the process. I believe that if I follow an idea, or an execution, or a craft intuitively, I'll get to a place where I'm happy with it. Sometimes I need to struggle through the pain to get there, but I know I’m getting close to something cool when I get that “this is starting to feel exciting” feeling. I think all the best designers and creatives that I've worked with have an ability to follow and trust their unique vision. As a creative leader I try to empower that sense of spontaneity and self-belief in my team. There is a randomness and unexpected value to intuitive, human creativity that should be empowered and protected.

Product

There isn’t a formula for great creativity, but I do believe that brilliant projects have a few things in common. And these are things I look for.

Firstly, is it actually solving a problem? Ultimately, if the work isn’t doing that in an unexpected way, it diminishes the value of our creativity. Is it doing or saying something that no other brand can? If you can achieve this - it’s a huge step to making it new and ownable.

If we think of what’s happening in the lives of the humans we’re trying to connect with as the cultural tinder, the idea needs to be the match that ignites it. So, I’m looking for both understanding of cultural opportunities or tensions, and a thought that leverages them to express a sentiment that perhaps hasn’t been articulated yet. I.e., something that people might be feeling that they haven’t been able to put into words. If you can find that you are onto something extraordinary.

I also look for something in the idea that people want to talk about. It could be a visual. It could be a thing.

Or to put it another way - why should anyone actually care about this? What about it makes this worth their time?

And then finally, I see craft as integral. I view everything that we do as an experience that connects a brand and a human. Craft defines the quality of that experience.

Process

I have always loved the infinite potential of a blank sheet of paper. Whether that’s a fresh brief, or a chance to begin again with a debrief. The beginning of a project always feels exhilarating. Because I’m a creative optimist, the potential always looms larger than the doubt.

And, for me, it always starts with understanding the unique nature of the challenge. Sometimes that must be unearthed. So, I always love to collaborate with a strategist to shape the brief in partnership with the client.

Collaboration throughout the process is just as important to me as the ability to find space and sink into it myself.

No two jobs are ever the same, but they all involve a process that oscillates between joy and pain. Sometimes you must push through your own personal pain barrier to find something you believe in. Sometimes it comes during the brief. But one thing’s for sure - when things feel scary, you’re doing things right. Over the years I’ve come to trust in the creative process more. Sometimes my role is just as much to sherpard people through that process, as it is to guide the work.

Press

I was born in Ireland but grew up in South Africa. In South Africa, I was the Irish kid. When I moved to England, I was the Irish-South African. When I moved to Australia, I was all of those, but not Australian. I grew up as an outsider.

When I first started out, I didn’t know that as a creative, I would have to label myself as a writer, a designer, a strategist, or an art director to be hired. I just did all of that because I loved it, and it was all a part of the creative process. So, when I moved to London early in my career, with a book that didn’t fit a title, I really struggled to find my place. I felt like a creative industry outsider. But I embraced that. When it felt like everyone just wanted to make big TV ads, I wanted something more than that. At the time I couldn’t articulate what that was. Now, I know it to be the elevation of how brands and humans connect.

You can probably spot the theme. I think growing up outside of the norm has influenced me hugely. It’s probably made me more empathetic and curious about people and culture, because if I could understand them more, I could relate to them and belong. It probably also fed my hunger to prove myself because I had to. I feel like my career took off once I had earned the chance to lead and do so in a way that I believed in - one that seeks to connect and liberate all the spectrums of creativity, rather than box them in with department siloes and processes.