Who Are The Pond?

Who Are The Pond?

Chances are you’ve kind of heard of them, or know someone they represent, but who exactly are The Pond? As director Leighton Howl explains, they are, among other things, advocates for top talent, hell bent on helping folk everywhere find creative independence.

“The idea behind The Pond came about four years ago, when returning from the UK a few of us creative types got thinking; there had to be a better way for creative people to remain self-employed yet still be highly creative and earn a half-decent regular income.

Four years later, we now represent more than 100 independent creative/design directors, art directors, copywriters, specialist writers, digital creatives, designers and strategists, from Auckland to Christchurch. And more recently a few hired guns from Melbourne and Sydney.

To put it simply, The Pond is a pure creative resource where anyone can tap into the skills and experience of the talented people we represent. We felt if we set up a premium service with premium people (and put them first and foremost), we could change some of the pre-conceived industry notions that out-sourcing talent meant compromising quality. It’s also a creative collective run by creatives - we know what makes a good creative and how to manage creative talent.

Our main point of difference, particularly from recruiters, is that all of our members choose to freelance, contract or consult. And it’s because they’re not just filling in time between full time jobs, our members offer a more professional service than other random part time freelancers. They also have to be at least midweight level and have their heads screwed on the right way, because clients don’t have the time for handholding.

Think of our service as a tap that you can turn off and turn on as needed. It’s the ultimate in flexibility, really. Some clients have said they’ve saved money from our flexible nature by relying on us instead of hiring people full-time.

Many top creatives return or emigrate to New Zealand but aren’t able to get the money they made overseas by going fulltime here. A few years ago we would have lost this talent back overseas to places like Sydney or Melbourne, but we’d like to think The Pond is now giving them options.

Likewise, other creatives come knocking as a way of balancing commercial creativity with purer forms of creativity. All of our creatives are doing other creative projects outside their specialised fields. Richard Gouley is an advertising art director by day, but flies overseas pushing his solar powered ‘Sunshower’ invention to the world by night. Next to him we see DM specialist Stacey Roper running a lowbrow art gallery on K-rd and Copywriter Kola Ogundipe has just published his first record on an international music label along with much more. It’s these creative projects that fuel our members’ creativity so they really exceed on traditional commercial projects.

This year we were given the chance to sponsor the Best Design Awards. It seemed to fit like hand in glove really. We support creatives and push them to do their best, so having a night where we can really celebrate the best of New Zealand’s design is great.”

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