Snask on the power of fame and standing out
We talk to the co-founders of the Stockholm-based agency Snask about how irreverence and personality still go a long way in the creative industries
Fame in the commercial creative industries can be a double-edged sword. Raising your profile can lead to many advantages: talks, awards juries and recognition for your business. But glory for individual creatives is increasingly seen as less of a priority now than creating fame for your clients and the brands they represent.
This is a sharp change from a few decades ago. Then, most agencies and studios would have the names of their founders on the door: Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Wolff Olins, Abbott Mead Vickers, for example. Yet if you’re founding an agency today, it is increasingly rare to use your name – instead, we have an industry full of unusual and often quirky monikers: Mother, Uncommon, Ragged Edge and, more recently, Baby Teeth and Ace of Hearts.
In the latter camp there is Snask, a design, branding and communications company based in Stockholm and founded nearly 20 years ago by Fredrik Öst and Erik Kockum (and Magnus Berg, who left the business in 2017). Yet unlike some of the agencies formed at that time, Snask never sought anonymity.
