The most reasonable question anyone asks before a large engagement is how one person delivers it. The answer is that I don't, and I have never pretended otherwise. I hold the thread; specialists are assembled around the work in front of us and paid per project. This page explains exactly how that operates, because the arrangement is the reason the work is good rather than a caveat to it.
An agency sells you its capacity. A bench is assembled for your problem.
Four rules, and they do not change between engagements.
Six disciplines, drawn on as the work requires. Everything strategic stays with me.
Identity, systems and the design of the things a positioning has to survive contact with.
Sites and digital experience, built to the structure rather than decorating around it.
Brand film, founder film, and the edit discipline that decides whether any of it lands.
Portrait, product, space and event. The image library a brand actually runs on.
Long-form, editorial and the voice work that keeps a position consistent at volume.
For builds with enough moving parts that coordination becomes its own discipline.
The honest version, including what you give up.
Senior attention as the default rather than the pitch. No account layer between you and the person doing the thinking. A team sized to the problem instead of to a payroll, which is also why the fees are what they are. And when the engagement ends, it genuinely ends — you are not absorbing the cost of someone's utilisation target.
Scale on demand. An agency can put six people on something next Monday; I cannot, and if that is what the moment requires you should hire one. There is also a single point of failure, which is me — worth knowing before you engage rather than after. I would rather say both of those plainly than have you find out in week three.
Named at briefing, per engagement — with their work in front of you before anyone starts.
If you have an engagement in mind, start with the work. If you are a specialist who wants to be brought in, the bench is always worth joining and I do go back to it first.