(Written by Hayley Knott, our one-sixteenth Native American Account Manager)

I once saw an image that attempted to describe how a creative mind thinks. This struck a nerve with me as i sympathised greatly to the fluid chaos that was often my mind. I am instinctively a creative thinker, my mind works at 110 miles an hour trying to compute so many different elements sometimes words even escape me.

I find I am never content with how things are and am constantly challenging everything, forever searching for improvement.

My creative influences and inspirations are constantly changing which inevitable equates to me never being able to pin down a specific style or identity in my own creative communication. So I can completely sympathise with having 2,857 tabs open at once in my mind. In the same thread I have never chosen a specific discipline to master and so often find myself with elaborate and creative ideas but lacking the skills to turn them into reality. This frustration has often exploded in unchecked, unstandardised crafts, gilded bathtubs, full scale mural painting, volunteer face painting at every opportunity and a heck of a lot of mess.

I found my niche in admin and coordination positions, gaining experience from job to job, across varied industries, but searching frantically for my place and my calling, I came across an industry that celebrated everything I was awed by.

A cosmic collaboration of creativity, innovation and impact brought together at the 63rd Cannes International Festival of Creativity, celebrating the brave, the proactive, championing technology and awarding talent and iconic ideas. But it was organised, it followed schedules, it had a structure and was functional; it had a purpose and a business head that delivered.

Being exposed to the industry side of creativity showed me that being creative isn’t just about finger paints and sculpting clay its also about crafting ideas and visions in a way that successfully communicates a message, and delivers on time and to a budget. That hyper organised (and tiny bit bossy) part of me had a place. Finally.

This new awareness and exposure made me challenge everything I was doing and everything I wanted to do. All I knew was that this was the beginning of a great adventure, my adventure.

My administration and project management skills outstripped anything else my CV was carrying in its arsenal and I was going to use what i’m great at to work in the industry I had fallen in love with.

As soon as I found this enlightenment slowly my vision became clearer and all of the excess tabs holding pointless 404 error pages and outdated information that were clogging up my mind started closing, all the energy that was being spent on indecision and unfulfilled aspirations was slowly being turned to a universal goal, a true direction was being mapped and a strong course plotted.

So determined, excited, positive and slightly naive I went for it, full pelt, researching, different companies, their mission, their ethos and their quality of work, deciding what was important for me and what I could offer. Where there is a will there is a way and if Cannes taught me anything it taught me I can!

And that, my fellow Romans and countrymen is how I ended up at Thats Brave. I am a facilitator of creativity as the account manager but it is an environment that encourages creative thinking, no idea is too small or too big to be dismissed, and although I may spend more time on spread sheets than Indesign I have learnt that every element is necessary to deliver a successful creative project, every person is vital in the creative chain. I have learnt that it doesn’t matter if you are not versed in every creative application and know all the ins and outs of every design function on an Apple Mac, as long as you have a passion, understanding and ability to embrace creativity in all its forms you can find your place in the creative process and flourish.

Just believe you Cannes.

Hooray for us! Our business card has been featured in international art and design publisher SendPoints’ new publication, Creative Business Cards. We’d like to tell you a little bit about it.

The standard-issue That’s Brave business card (licence to kill not included) is edge-painted, letter-pressed using eco-friendly ink, and made of recycled grey board for a differently, tactile feeling. A sticker is then applied, showing a classic 20’s-style ‘bishop’s finger’ hand pointing readers towards our website.

The intent behind this design was to show, right from the start, that That’s Brave is not a standard design company with ultra-flashy, ultra-clean business cards. We wanted to convey a sense of readiness, difference and bravery.

(image from typoretum)

What’s more, we love a meeting down the pub, and they double up perfectly to level a wonky bar stool!

The Ramblers, Great Britain’s largest walkers’ rights advocate, has fought since the beginning for the freedom and protection of the country’s avid hikers, strollers and wanderers. Celebrating their 80th birthday this year, Ramblers has grown from a few walking fanatics’ labour of love into a massive nationwide organisation.

To commemorate this milestone and keep their members informed about the foundation’s ongoing work, Ramblers approached That’s Brave to produce their annual Impact Report. This was to detail both the long history of Ramblers and the work they’ve done recently. Everything from Twitter statistics to news of new projects would feature in the sleek, well-designed brochure, covering Ramblers’ activity from 2013 to 2014.

We began with ideas of how to tie all of these disparate pieces of information together. Previous impact reports had been long, inaccessible A4 documents. We decided to produce something a little different – lighter, more user-friendly. We hit upon the idea of using boot-print imagery on a long, fold-out brochure to imply a path from coast to coast. White boot-prints mingled with pictures and information, progressing through the years as the history of Ramblers is told. The idea was to take the reader on a ‘walk’ through the history of the organisation. Silhouetted images of walkers strolling past scenery were used in the background of the brochure, to enhance this impression and tie into the brand.

Neat, simplistic infographics were used to represent information and make it more comprehensible. This approach was used in line with Ramblers’ goal of making their work more accessible to younger audiences.

Ramblers asked for something a little braver than the usual, and we delivered. We were very proud to present the new Ramblers Impact Report, 2013/14, which you can see below: