A letter to agency leaders still underestimating their creative core.
This isn’t just a Namibian thing. Over on LinkedIn, I’ve had the privilege of connecting with creatives from all over the world—and it’s the same story – Creative Agencies Need Designers. Different boats, same sea. The creative industry might speak in different accents, but the pain points echo loud and clear.
It’s 2025 and somehow, there’s still a divide between the business side and the design side, agencies are still underestimating their creatives. Agencies tend to still leave designers out of briefings, block them from clients, give them tight deadlines, and undervalue the work they do. It’s like we’re stuck in a time loop—because I saw this exact behaviour in 2010 when I walked away from agency life. And I’m still seeing it now. Nothing’s changed.
And yet—everything about how we communicate, create, and connect has changed. Except this.
Why this matters to me (and why you can trust me to talk about it):
I’ve been both inside the agency machine and out. I’ve been in the brainstorming meetings. Redesigned campaigns last-minute. Met the clients no one could crack. And I’ve watched them stay because of the design. I’ve freelanced for agencies and worked with clients directly. A creative touchpoint is often the turning point in whether a brand succeeds or flops.
What finally made me walk away
In all honesty, I stopped working with agencies. The red tape. The unclear briefs. The hierarchy. And the biggest one—the other agency departments acting as the client. Too many times, I’ve heard “I don’t like it” from a client service rep who wasn’t the client, didn’t understand the brief, and couldn’t explain the strategy. And just like that, the design dies. Back to the drawing board—often unnecessarily.
The client service team, media or CEO isn’t the gatekeeper of creative. The process needs more respect, more inclusion, and less personal preference.
Lately, I’ve been binging Mad Men for the first time (yes, late to the party!), and what struck me most was not just the storytelling or the suits—but the realisation that some things haven’t changed at all. The way creative departments are dismissed. The lack of respect. The disconnect between business and creativity. It felt a little too familiar.
There were quotes that made me sit up straight. Don Draper once said, “You’re not an artist. You solve problems.”That’s the part the industry forgets to respect. Designers are problem solvers—not decoration.
So I say this with love but also with backbone:
If you don’t have a designer that understands strategy, media, and people—what exactly do you have? You’re not a creative agency anymore. You’re a marketing office. A PR house. A media hub. Not an agency that births campaigns people feel.
The truth creative agency leaders and designers need to face
Here’s the real talk: If your designers aren’t respected, your agency isn’t creative. If you don’t value the creative minds who bring your strategies to life, you’re playing office, not building impact.
BUT (and this is the hard-to-hear part for us designers)… We need to take some responsibility too. We’ve allowed this treatment because, for too long, we’ve underestimated ourselves.
We’ve had a reputation—and not always a good one. Some of it deserved, some of it deeply unfair. But mostly? It’s because we didn’t always realise just how crucial our role in business really is. We stayed quiet. We skipped the educating each other part. Somewhere along the way, we got comfortable accepting crumbs. Because at least it was something.
Joan Holloway once said, “You want some respect? Go out and get it for yourself.” We’re not just allowed to ask for more—we have to.
Creative Agencies Need Designers. Full stop.
If you remove the designer, the copywriter, the visual thinker—the soul of your campaign is gone.
It doesn’t matter how brilliant the strategy or how perfectly timed the media schedule is. If it can’t be seen, felt, read, connected with—then what do you really have?
Don Draper said, “If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.” Well, here we are—changing it.
Let’s also be honest about something else: Many agencies lean on freelancers these days. But the problem is, they only hire junior freelancers—because they’re cheap. Even when they need a senior designer, they still try to negotiate them down. And then they treat them like an add-on, not a partner.
It’s like they expect every freelancer to be a modern-day Peggy Olson—brilliant, fast, and endlessly available. Without the corner office or the credit. Even Peggy reached her limit. “You never say thank you!” she told Don. Sound familiar?
That’s not collaboration. Agencies are extracting creative value without investing in the people who bring it to life. That’s a transactional relationship—one that burns out your best creatives.
The way forward for creative agencies and designers?
Understanding the Full Picture, why Creative Agencies Need Designers
Let’s face it—respect grows when we truly understand each other. And that starts with education.
Traditionally each department in an agency is trained separately—media studies, marketing degrees, design diplomas, communication strategy certifications. But how often are we taught to understand each other? How each department works? How we compliment each other?
We should be learning the whole agency model—not just our little piece of it.
The best agency teams are cross-informed. Designers who understand media. Client managers who know what makes design work. Strategists who know how creative minds tick.
That’s when the magic happens.
We will see creative agencies thrive.
And that’s when the client feels it.
Ask yourself this, dear agency—truly ask it:
What would your agency be without a single designer, copywriter, or creative? No visuals. No messaging. No emotion. Just spreadsheets, timelines, and polite emails.
Imagine it. Feels a little empty, doesn’t it?
Now imagine what could happen if every department started seeing each other as equal partners. And creatives were brought in at the start, not just the end and ideas flowed both ways. What is we designed together?
Because that’s the agency of the future.
How do we bridge this gap?
I know—it’s not a quick fix. Rebuilding the relationship between creative and business teams is going to take time. Years, even. But we can start with something small. Something human.
It begins with something simple: curiosity. Ask questions. How does your work actually work? What do you do? What does your process look like?
Clients have sat next to me while I edited annual reports or large publications. Every time, they’d look at me wide-eyed and say, “I didn’t know it was so detailed” or “I didn’t realise this takes so long.”
One client even said, “I thought you just pushed a button!”
Moments like that are funny, sure—but they also open eyes. And open doors.
Understanding builds respect. And respect builds better work. So ask. Watch. Sit beside each other. That’s how it starts.
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Designers—if you don’t know where to start to educate the people you work with, I’ve made tools to guide you based on my 25 years of working with them all – find them here.
