In November, Tan Sohanpall took up the role of Associate Creative Director at Somewhere, which was launched as part of the Uniform Group in May 2021.
Somewhere is a creative agency “for Property and Place”, and sits alongside Uniform and brand consultancy Continuous. It supports a range of property and placemaking clients, which include Savills, Canary Wharf and Urban Splash.
Before joining Somewhere, Sohanpall was Creative Director at Cityscape Digital.
We found out how a week in his life looks…
Monday
Monday morning kicks off with our studio Monday Morning Meeting (MMM), a great way to bring the team together before the week begins.
We begin with highlighting key creative project wins from the past week and provide an overview of the major opportunities and upcoming projects this week, ending on Monday morning inspiration to get those creative minds thinking.
This week we took a look into how traditional art has inspired cinematography in film, and hand drawn black-and-white architectural illustrations from Hugh Ferriss.
I’ll then unpack my week, which breaks down into three key areas – studio art direction, scoping project opportunity, and studio/client initiatives. Despite planning, the dynamic shift of project and client-facing scenarios in the day-to-day requires flexibility.
The remainder of the day is taken up by art direction across the larger studio projects. Two are full holistic visual communication suites consisting of film and CGI content, one which will require a film workshop later in the week.
Art direction is generally split into two key areas for the team: Concept and craft. It’s important for our studio and team to ensure the creative excellence of the content is aligning to the commercial needs of our client, and sense-checking the creative against this in every review or project milestone is crucial.
Tuesday
This morning two of our client directors and I are pitching a unique visual communication solution to one of our client’s for their latest development. We will jointly spend a good portion of the morning refining, prepping and attempting to preempt the journey of the pitch.
Pitch done – the team did a great job! So well, in fact, that the client team invited us to come back in a week and present the visual communication solution in front of the wider development team. Time to debrief and unpack the pitch – what went well, and where we could be better.
We jointly come up with ideas to refine the creative offering, making it even more compelling off the back of the pitch. Post-lunch, one of our client directors and I head into London to meet with two of our other key clients, a great opportunity to get some valuable face-to-face time.
We discuss our brand repositioning, what’s kept us busy during the pandemic, the evolution of our creative and technology offerings, and our thoughts on the future of communicating property and place as we head into what feels like a new digital era for the property industry.
Wednesday
A midweek studio art direction session across the larger projects I’m overseeing within the studio is the first thing on the agenda. As the team is well into production at this point in the week, time is precious, so I tend to focus on the high-level creative concepts, capturing specific feedback for the artistic team, and leaving the craft for the art directors to follow up on.
In these sessions I will sketch on screen or pull up key references that will assist in guiding the direction for the team in line with the wider creative project vision. I like to keep these sessions focused but encourage ideas and thoughts from all levels within the team. I believe good ideas can come from anyone in the team.
Straight out of art direction into our weekly CCT (Core Client Team) meeting. Consisting of the client directors, PMs and myself, as the CCT we focus on strategic creative initiatives across our portfolio of new and established clients, discuss wider client project opportunities, and balancing creative excellence with client commercial need.
After lunch it’s off to London to meet with one of our clients on a live project in the studio for a film workshop. Armed with the film scope and latest CG shots, one of our art directors and I lead the workshop, mocking up the basis of the narrative, storyboard and on-screen script.
The purpose of this session is to ensure we capture what the client team is trying to communicate in a compelling and emotive manner, while ensuring the design principles of their scheme come through. After over two hours we have the bones of a film! Next step is for our team to digest and propose a refined narrative, storyboard, and on-screen script for sign off.
Thursday
Later this morning the team and I will be presenting an advanced set of CG previews to a client team, so it’s time to sit down with the team prior to the review and make some final tweaks to enhance and pull together the set.
The project is nearing completion, so the advanced review is focused on nailing the craft, people and narrative across the suite. Client call done, and the advanced previews went down well! Time to gather the team together and debrief.
I give an overview of the feedback post-call and provide further thoughts – through sketch, on-screen grading, or reference imagery – of key areas I feel can push the final quality of the shots. Now over to the art director to see the project through to final delivery.
The afternoon is our team’s monthly Creative Review, a critique of the creative aspects of all the work delivered by the team over the last month. A week or so prior to the review, all the work is placed onto a Miro board, where the team can then freely provide specific feedback on using the key creative ingredients we judge our work by.
This is a great way to firstly appreciate the hard work of our talented team, but to also acknowledge and identify key patterns, rhythms and routines that are both positive and negative – finding ways to avoid, address or implement further across the studio.
It’s also a great way to look at our operational side of the creative process, assessing what has worked well and what hasn’t. All with the aim to improve the way we deal with the management of our clients along the creative journey.
Friday
Final art direction check-in for the week. In this session I have an overview of the creative output from the week and plan ahead for the key project milestones for the following week. This is a great way to assess if we are achieving the creative aspirations, in terms of concept and craft, that we originally set out for.
As a team we also try to foresee any obstacles that could prevent our team from hitting those project milestones set out for the following week, which is always a challenge.
Finally I check in with the art directors and studio lead, discussing challenges or opportunities they have for the week ahead, offering guidance and mentoring where I need to.
This is followed by some planning time for myself looking to the upcoming week. I’ll mainly reflect on any creative opportunities across live projects that we can implement, digest any scoping opportunities across new projects, and look into any strategic initiatives that need my attention next week. All done and time for a well deserved whiskey!
