London, November 15th, 2016

If you search for the meaning of FIT you’ll find: being the right size or shape for someone or something. In FIT Digital might well be that, but it’s also a bit more. FIT is a creative digital marketing agency that helps brands and agencies with digital production and marketing. In this context FIT stands for ‘Found in Translation,’ as opposed to ‘Lost’ in it.

FIT founders come from different cultures and different countries, and this has been turned into a definite advantage. Japanese Kana Morita and English Nick Ridley founded FIT in 2009. She studied Sociology in Japan and Arts in London; he lived in Japan a few years and is a self-taught digital artist. From this association FIT Digital was born as an English-Japanese agency, with a few spin offs.

Ridley expands, “Our company works on a ratio of about 30% Japanese and 70% English projects. Our clients include Nike, Adidas, Ralph Lauren, SKII, Docomo, JTB, JESS3, W+K, Ogilvy and many more.

“FIT Digital also has two Japanese related sister-companies. Japanbuzz.info; a Japanese digital PR agency JapanBuzz and ZEROZERO.site; which is a luxury publisher targeting Japanese women with an interest in foreign culture, fashion, travel and beauty.”

Much FIT’s work involves strategy & marketing, web design, branding, banners and apps. Its design and work philosophy is based around keeping things simple, beautiful, progressive and effective.

A good example of this, Ridley tells us, is a recent project that helps to raise awareness about environmental damages cause by greedy bankers (see photo: ‘forest and finances’). Working with the Rainforest Action Network (ran.org) FIT created a website that easily helps visitors visualise information and find out who is involved.

Ridley explains, “Many banks are using their customer’s money to fund rainforest destruction, by investing in Palm oil production. Palm oil plantations involve the clearing of the rain forest. Japanese banks make a lot of investments of this sort, which is why we originally got involved. We built a quick tool where you can check if your bank is investing in Palm oil production: http://forestsandfinance.org”

Ridley shares with TIA more about himself and the agency’s workprocess.

How did you get started in the industry?

My entire career has been about proving to myself that I could succeed at design thinking and business despite never having studied these subjects at school or university.

I studied Human Geography at University, which was not a subject that interested me so much. At the time digital courses were not so ubiquitous, so as a hobby I taught myself digital design. I read books, watched tutorial videos, created projects with fictitious briefs and completed internships. I worked for a few years freelance and around 2011 started my own agency. We now work with some create clients and collaborators.

This sense of knowing you have a lot to learn and catch up is a good experience to have. When you self study there is no limit to what you can learn and find that the best opportunities come because you wanted them, not because they arrive at your door.

How do you define creativity?

For me creativity is about creating ideas and completing a finished item in the best and most interesting way possible. Many people have great ideas but not so many can complete those concepts with remarkable finish.

In your opinion, what ingredients are key to create a successful project?

To make a project successful the original brief needs to be met and improved upon. I believe that the best projects are those we can be proud about and truly say that we gave it our best. Also as we work on many projects with tight deadlines, meeting those deadlines with as much creativity as possible is also part of that success.

What is your team’s design process?

In most cases whether it’s our own internal project or a client’s it starts with a brief. This allows us to define the parameters of the project. Then we usually brainstorm with the client to find out what they are looking for, because usually you can find out things about the project that are most exciting but not in the brief. Once we’ve decided on a route it’s about allowing as many ideas and thoughts in as possible. Finally we distil this into a workable idea.

How do you define your agency building process?

For website build we usually start finding out what the specs are for the job. Sometimes we work with high security clients like the World Bank so have to be mindful of their internal needs. We mostly code in HTML5, PHP and JS.

What tools do you use as a manager to plan your activities as well as that of your team?

The google suite of apps & omniPlan.

Name a challenge your team is currently facing

Unfortunately there are only a few hours in each day, which can be a big problem! Other than that though it’s profitably growing as a company and a team, whilst still remaining passionate about your work.

Are there online publications, professionals, industry leaders you follow?

There is so much media online these days that it’s hard to follow it all. I pop over to siteinspire, FWA and Creative Applications from time to time. Apartamento magazine is a nice offline read — as are other local London based high-end property magazines, which are good for inspirational living!

What is your favourite word?

Life. We have no idea where it came from and it’s the most precious thing we have.

What is your least favourite word?

Bored

What inspires you in your work?

Music, Art, the Web and the People around me.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Musician

By Geny Caloisi.
genyc@topinteractiveagencies.com

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