Alejandro Guzman

For eighteen years I've been the creative director on work produced for Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, Sony and a long list of others, in partnership with the agencies that hold those accounts. I'm on the kickoff calls. I've sat across the table from those clients, argued for the concept, and been on the floor when the thing got built.

That's the level Azul operates at, and it's the reason firms keep the number instead of putting the work out to bid every year.

Whose name goes on the work

When a firm wants the work to go out under their name, it does. That's their call and it's part of what they're buying, because the person who owns the client relationship should be the one who gets complimented for it. It doesn't change who's in the room.

Who's behind Azul

Azul is me and a bench I've built over those eighteen years. 3D, video, illustration, development. They come in by project, they've worked with me for a long time, and nobody is learning your brand on your budget. You get a senior creative director from the first call through the last file, with no handoff in the middle.

Background

I trained as a graphic designer in Bogotá, then took a master's in sustainable design at Edinburgh and wrote a dissertation on behavioral economics that I presented at a symposium at TU Delft. Somewhere in there I spent a stretch as a strategist on a presidential campaign in Colombia.

That mix is why I read a brief for what will make somebody act before I read it for what it should look like. It's also why I work in English and Spanish, with both going into the first layout rather than a translation pass at the end.