MAKE IT MATTER OR DON'T MAKE IT

Tim Smith, Founder and Creative Director of FLUORO®, isn’t interested in campaigns that come and go. For him, branding is about building living systems that move at the speed of culture, not chasing trends or playing it safe. In this conversation, he shares why cultural literacy matters more than ever, how creative studios can stay meaningful in the age of AI, and why taking risks is essential to staying relevant. Tim will also be joining us as a speaker at Forward Festival 2026 in Berlin.

You’ve described FLUORO® less as an agency and more as a growth partner: What do most brands still misunderstand about what that actually requires from them?

I think the most effective growth happens when a brand really supports the unification of strategy, creative direction and execution. And the way things are set up with the big agencies, this can be very difficult. When WPP restructured last year, the CEO Cindy Rose admitted this was due to “excessive organisational complexity, a lack of an integrated operating model and inconsistent strategic execution.”

Working with smaller, agile agency like FLUORO® gives brands the potential to move at the speed of culture. Alongside our diverse internal talent base we are plugged into and direct a wide network of world-class creative partners. Rather than designing expensive one-off campaigns and spending most of the budget on execution, brands need to envision themselves as living in an always-on, 360-degree brand world. They need to be able to flex and react to real-life events, shifting business priorities, new product drops, niche audiences. And I think the best way to do this is building trust and rapport with a team that they can co-create with, bringing their brand to life wherever their fans are.

FLUORO® Studio is known for strong visual language: How do you ensure that striking aesthetics translate into strategic impact for brands, rather than just visual attention?

It’s about getting the fundamentals right first - understanding their unique way of seeing the world. Everything starts with a conversation: who they are, what they do and what they stand for. From there, it’s about seeing their value, what they can do, what they can become and understanding the wider landscape of their industry or sector. Then we can identify where we can make a meaningful impact.

You can create a visually stunning ad campaign that sparks short-term engagement. But if it doesn’t truly represent the business, its values and its purpose, it’s still a failure. Too many brands chase trends or cultural moments without asking what it actually says about who they are. We make sure to have those conversations, establish clear brand pillars, and constantly cross-reference every idea, campaign or moment against them, ensuring everything we do lives up to the values and vision of the brand.

AI is reshaping how quickly ideas can be produced: In a world where everyone can generate visuals instantly, what will actually differentiate creative studios?

Yeah, desk research is getting a bit silly now, it’s so divorced from context. It’s one thing to build a mood board, but the ability to pull in everything that has ever existed and loads of stuff that never will, has led to a loss of meaning. More than ever, agencies need to dig into the foundations of what a brand is about and tap into culture in a way that works for the piece.

For example, we created a visually led campaign for Apple to celebrate South Asian Heritage Month. Aditi Strivastava from our creative team had gained their attention through her work with TouchDesigner, which lets you DJ with visuals, turning code into energy, motion, and emotion. We avoided oversimplification of cultural references, creating an abstract, ever-evolving motion piece. It layered emotions, shifting memories and multiple perspectives, celebrating the complexity and richness of South Asian identities in a fresh, dynamic and resonant way. It contributed something to culture rather than interpreting it cynically to gain attention from a certain audience.

I think cultural literacy will become ever more important amid the same-ification and flattening of visual culture, as brands seek to engage in different contexts. It’s about knowing where to look for the real happenings, artifacts and people to inspire the work, and using skill and the latest techniques and technologies to make something completely new and relevant.

Forward Festival attracts creatives who want to build culturally relevant brands: What’s the difference between borrowing culture and genuinely contributing to it?

I think it comes down to a rigorous, savvy approach to world-building combined with a more generous outlook. You need to really dig into the unique perspective, intelligently and with nuance. For example, with R.A.D® we were inspired by skate, surf and 90s rave, but mashed that up with retro-optimistic ideas of what the future could look like. And in our creative partnership with Doof, we were collaborating with Scottish hard house enterprise with global reach alongside a community-focused foundation from the founder’s hometown of Dundee. Doof is not just selling people dance music culture, they’re creating it together.

We love working with brands like R.A.D® and Doof, with an outlook that is less transactional and extractive, and more generous. Creative people who enjoy sharing, basically!

Many designers feel they execute ideas rather than shape them: At what point in your career did you stop “servicing” and start truly influencing decisions?

I don’t think I was ever into servicing clients – it’s got to be collaborative for the energy to work. Before FLUORO®, I worked in the luxury sector, starting as a junior designer and in a journey of eight years becoming a partner at an agency. I wasn’t just contributing creatively; I was helping shape the strategic direction – how we positioned ideas, how we sold the work and why it mattered. I knew early on exactly what I believed and how I wanted to work.

Eventually, it became clear that I had taken that environment as far as I could. I understood the realities of running a business, both the right ways and the wrong ones, and I had a strong vision for doing things very differently – I wanted to work in a more progressive, forward-focussed way, I knew I would have to create that environment myself, and so I founded FLUORO® on a team aligned by shared passion, belief and ambition – working with clients who are open to new perspectives and bold vision.

Looking back, what personal risk - creatively or professionally - most directly shaped the way you lead today?

Well I suppose there were two big ones, firstly leaving as a Partner and Director of an established agency to start FLUORO®, and secondly, meeting Ben Massey, Founder of R.A.D® (‘Rally Against Destruction’). He’s a former CrossFit Games athlete who is incredibly driven, a great person and has no interest in following convention. We met and bonded over our obsession with footwear, sport and culture and next thing were on this mad journey to build a performance footwear brand from the ground-up. We jumped on a plane to Portland knock on the door of Tom Berend, former Nike and Adidas designer who agreed to work with us.

In the years since launch, we’ve broken all the rules of footwear marketing and built a devoted community from serious athletes to style-driven brand fans with a constant stream of wild creative to surprise and entertain them online and IRL. That partnership has totally made me see what’s possible and affected the way I lead the team, and the potential I see with others. It’s vindication of our approach of New-Age brand and advertising: blending the lasting impact of branding with the short-term urgency of advertising so that both work harder together.

Looking at the version of you who left luxury to start FLUORO® - what did he underestimate about the journey ahead?

Even at the time, I knew that mega work comes from good leadership and direction. It requires control of the process, clarity of vision and the ability to reassure and inspire clients through expertise and perspective. When you create that confidence, then great things follow. But I probably underestimated the ‘de-risking’ aspects of big business that can slow down or foil the best devised plans and creative proposals.

I’ve had to develop a whole new skillset that can be needed to engage with the layers of influence and get good things over the line. It’s about convincing the right people of the need to keep the brand moving – if you fail to put out inventive work, you risk losing relevance as culture leaves you behind.

Forward Festival attracts creatives at very different stages of their careers: What advice would you give to someone who feels pressure to “play it safe” early on?

I’d say not taking risks is the biggest risk of all. You could easily end up frustrated as your unique style and nuance gets lost and you’re just servicing someone else’s ideas. There’s a lot of talk in the design world about whether designers should show their own perspective or show the actual work. And people tend to go one way or the other. I always think designers should absolutely show their perspective, because the agency you're in might not be the place to really show your talents and abilities, because of their influence on what you're doing. You need to be able to show your perspective – visually, creatively, philosophically, almost – so that the right opportunities can open up for you.

If FLUORO® didn’t exist, what would be missing from the creative industry right now?

New-Age brand and advertising! The separation between brand and advertising has collapsed; they now form a single, living system. The strongest brands don’t rely on isolated campaigns to build awareness; they create coherent worlds that people choose to spend time in. We partner with them to build those worlds, blending the lasting impact of branding with the short-term urgency of advertising so that both work harder together. We produce creative that has tangible impact: growth, audience loyalty and fan devotion;
not shallow indicators like brand colour recognition.

When people leave your talk at Forward Festival, what belief about branding or creativity do you hope they’ll question or completely rethink?

Great ideas are very fragile at the beginning. I hope they’ll see that you don’t have to follow the crowd or ‘fit in’ with the way things are done in the creative industries. The sector is crying out for change, with too much complexity, bureaucracy and bullshit getting in the way of great work being made. And the only people who can change that are the new ones coming into the industry, or those who have had enough of the way things are. Working at the intersection of culture, commerce and creativity should be exciting, so we need to take that back. Start your passion projects, speak up in meetings, and if you’re not being heard or appreciated, leave – it will be ok!

Interview by Raffaela Krenmayr