Jim Haven - creative director & brand strategist

Hello, if you’ve clicked on the about link, I suppose I owe you a little information. I’m Jim Haven, a strategically minded creative director with a propensity for asking questions. 

Colloquially speaking, I help brands discover who they are and what they can become. It’s a process of inquiry and insights and creativity where I harness the brilliance of brand strategists, creatives, designers and technologists building brands as experiences. I am presently the Director of Brand Design at Unit9 in London.  

My expertise is in brand and, communications design; naturally bridging the gap between business strategy, brand strategy and creative execution.  My career has taken me from ad agencies like Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, to Strawberryfrog in Amsterdam before founding my own creative agency, Creature.  Post Creature, I relocated to London to work with the unbelievably talented Unit9, perennial Adage production co. of the year winners.

As co-founder of Creature, I was the Chief Creative Officer and an energetic, sometimes overly optimistic part of the leadership team. My role involved guiding strategy, creative and helping shape the agency vision with the amazingly talented people around me. On the advent of an expanded client relationship, I led the opening and staffing of our second office, Creature of London establishing the executive team there and key new business. 

I’ve worked on a wide range of both start-ups and established brands including Dickies, HBO, The Wall Street Journal, Starbucks, Bill Gates,  Amazon, Porsche, Pacifico Beer, Isuzu, PepsiCo Brands, Microsoft, E*Trade, Google, and D-Wave Quantum to name a few.   Some of the smaller brands have been incredibly rewarding.  I don’t like to be labeled as a specialist, but I have worked quite a beverage brands. I do enjoy a good liquid.  

My work and opinions have been covered by numerous publications including the New York Times, Creativity, Communication Arts, Ad Age, AdWeek, The Drum, Gizmodo, and TedX where I spoke on the power of wonder.  (That’s a longer story) 

I don’t think you should care much about this kind of stuff, but I’ve been recognised by industry awards including Cannes Lions, D&AD, One Show, Communication Arts, Under Consideration, Dieline Awards, The Art Directors Club, Addy's, Ad Age Small Agency of the Year, and The Project Isaac Award for Innovation. The weirdest award was a life-sized purple chair that looked like a cartoon from Yahoo called the big idea chair for innovation in advertising. 

In addition to client work, I’ve served on  advisory boards for Picket Homes, DIRAC (Data Intensive Research in Astrophysics and Cosmology) The University of Puget Sound, Boomcloud360 and Feel Good Action ( A non-profit using motivational media to inspire voting and social change for underserved audiences.) 

It’s worth noting that while this “about”  section is written to share my background, every single thing I’ve done here, and throughout my career has been a partnership with many others. I’m incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to collaborate with brilliant creative, strategic and visionary minds. Every day is different from the one before. Which is pretty cool.

Thank you, Jim

Select Press:

Ad Week - On the spot - ( ye olde interview)

Dynamic Seattleites -

Creative Interviews: Jim Haven

Ad Age - Small Agency of the Year - 2014

Client Experience