Grey London has appointed Liam Thomas as head of design to lead its team of designers, animators and artworkers.
Thomas, who joins from DEPT® where he was head of design, recently won a Webby for his work on “The Truth, Undressed” for Canesten, which also picked up a Bronze Clio at the 2023 Clio Awards, and a Gold Clio at the Clio Health Awards 2023.
In his new role, Thomas will work across all Grey London clients reporting to executive creative director David Wigglesworth. Thomas will oversee the 15-strong design team, including artworkers in London, working periodically with Grey’s sister agency in Croatia.
In previous roles, Thomas has worked on major accounts including Nike, Tinder, Under Armour and Twitch, and worked as sr. designer at Manifesto Studios and Made Thought & AnalogFolk before joining DEPT® in May 2022.
Thomas is also a co-founder of SOMEDAY–a creative experiment rooted in Welsh culture which he set up with Dave Griffiths, to explore Welsh stories through design, events, apparel and conversation.
He is deeply passionate about addressing the attainment and accessibility gap within the advertising industry and has worked directly with schools and colleges in Wales, his hometown, to mentor students and support them as they explore what creative career opportunities are out there.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this โ and those many "Babadook" memes โ unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables โ "Bah-Bah-Doooook" โ an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More