Turning the Table: Stuart Thursby

Stuart Thursby is the Principal & Creative Director of Stack Creative, a creative agency that’s rooted in digital but nimble enough to flex with the ongoing shifts in marketing and design. Before opening Stack, his career included stints at agencies in both Toronto and Berlin, including AJ&Smart, BBDO, Cossette, Dare, DDB, FCB/SIX, Proximity, T4G, and Teehan+Lax. His work has been recognized by most of the award shows around, and he’s also taught UX and digital design at Humber College and RED Academy, alongside numerous articles (including for Applied Arts), podcast guest appearances, guest talks, and panels.

We are very grateful for Stuart for taking the time to judge our 2021 Student Awards, and for taking a moment to share a recent project he was particularly proud of. As you will see below in his analysis of Stack's work for Governance Solutions, Stuart is a holistic thinker addressing all aspects of a campaign equally and intimately.

What were some unique features of the campaign?

We have a trusting client in Debra Brown and her team, and we held hands and went through the multiple projects together, starting with brand strategy (with our strategy partner Vicki Waschkowski of Hook Marketing), leading into brand design and messaging, and then parallel pathing brand collateral and assets and website design and content. This gave us the unique opportunity to really shape the brand voice, identity, messaging, and key touchpoints in a cohesive manner that isn't always the case when those projects are run at different times across multiple agencies. Getting the chance to maintain the history of a 30+ year brand while giving it some new vibrancy was also a unique attribute of what made everything tick.

Why is this particular project a fave?

When I started Stack, it was with the fundamental goal of building a flexible creative agency that thought wider than one specific channel—or one specific stage of marketing creative. A corporate website is only as good as the brand or messaging we have to work with; a brand identity is only as good as its consistent usage across major and minor channels; and an advertising campaign is only as good as how it connects to everything else. This mindset has driven us from day one, and the Governance team was one of the first situations where we weren't tackling just one piece of the puzzle, but all three—proving the promise of the model, even at a smaller size (currently) than the larger agencies in Canada.

Thanks again to Stuart for helping judge the next generation of creative workers. To see more of Stuart’s work visit the Stack Creative website here and his Twitter here!