Cape Town, May 28th, 2020

With offices in Cape Town and Amsterdam, North VCA is an independent brand design consultancy.

The agency works with passionate people and companies who are looking to make a difference in the world.

The vision of the agency includes being fiercely independent, sharing its passion to make the world a better place and being committed to its work. Gavin Brian Williams, creative director and partner, described such vision on this interview.

What makes Cape Town a great place?

There’s a saying here, “if you don’t like the weather in Cape Town, wait 5 minutes”. As it juts out into the raging Atlantic Ocean, so many factors are at play. Nature collides and co-exists. Sea mists and sunshine, national parks within the CBD, endless coastlines at the feet of mountains twisted from the earth and surf that pounds in azure blue or dark swells.

Sharks in the deep blue of the oceans, sunlight on one side of the mountain, shadow and fog on the other. It is a city of contrasts and collisions of not only weather but people. It’s the village city and that is why it is loved. North wrote an ode to it in our brand film for Cape Town City Football Club.

Thinking of your offices based in Africa and Europe, what differences do you find most interesting in cultural and working terms?

No-one gets my jokes (an egotistical way of saying I’m not funny in Amsterdam).

How is communication flowing these days?

We’ve had a “working remotely” option for a while at North. Everyone just lets us know what they’re doing and we trust them to do what’s asked of them, so the whole lockdown has been manageable but incredibly strange. The end result is we miss each other but don’t have to see each other every day; that may be one of the positive learnings of this whole COVID-19 debacle. We’re working remotely, but miss each other.

What challenges were you facing before the spread of COVID-19 and how are you dealing with them right now?

It’s actually, bizarrely worked in our favour. If you’re in the same city, down the road or across continents, it doesn’t matter now. So while foreign based companies may have seen our distance from them as a challenge before, it no longer is now.

Can you tell us a bit about your role and what you’re focusing on?

Quite simply, we are focusing on expanding our European and American business adventures.

Please describe the agency’s creative culture

It’s one of the universe’s greatest mysteries that gravitates and binds certain people together. There is no obvious sense of commonality at North; we are a disparate, strange, insecurely brilliant, awfully polite, wildly subversive, impeccably misunderstood bunch who believe in themselves for at least a large majority of the day and spend the other portion of it thinking about how they can solve problems with the friends they work with. Long sentences are also part of North’s culture.

Could you name one of the hardest or proudest projects you ever challenged?

Every job is a unique challenge and we love that. What particularly interests North from a company philosophy stand point is the fact that everything significant has a story. Not just brands. We specialise in defining and creating brand stories for our clients and the reward of them seeing what their brand is capable of, is truly fulfilling.

Three important things that have brought you to where you are today

-Staying in touch.
-Joining North.
-Willow Matilda Williams. (Gavin’s newborn daughter)

Is there a question you wish people would ask you more often?

“Hey man, cool t-shirt what’s the story behind that?”

In another life, what job might you have chosen?

Formula 1 car designer.

Thanks Gavin!

Learn more about North VCA

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