Meet the Team - Jon Wells

Name
Jon Wells

Role within Assembly

Creative Director, UAE

What’s your favourite Assembly job you’ve worked on and why?

Capital District – Abu Dhabi. It was our first commission on setting up the UAE studio and it was an extremely successful project for the client (Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council) in gaining royal approval for the scheme.

What’s your favourite typeface / artist / building and why?

Chrysler Building – I love the Art Deco styling and it reminds me of my first trip to NYC. Favourite Website - http://www.thecoolhunter.co.uk/

What’s your favourite thing to do on a weekend?

Sitting round a camp fire in the desert with good friends and good ‘soft drinks’.

What’s your favourite dance-move?

The Chatham two-step.

What’s your favourite place and why?

London – it will always be home.

What makes you laugh out loud?

Schadenfreude and 30 Rock.

What makes you cry?

E.T. and the current England squad.

If you had to sum yourself up in 140 characters twitter style, what would you say?

Pepperoni pizza/Everton/Hendricks with cucumber/table tennis loving creative Englishman living in the Arabian desert.

More Cattle, Less Class – Matt in United Arab Emirates – Part 4 of 4

My final day saw me make yet another round trip along death alley, to Abu Dhabi to see some local government guys about a website – this one looks like it will come off and combined with something we are looking at for road safety and a brief for some video and motion graphics production, it was a productive trip from a new business perspective.

Was dreading the return flight in light of how busy the outbound flight was, but to my delight it was absolutely empty and I was able to sleep off the week and, er, the Ryder Cup.

I got talking to the Business Editor of the Economist whose job it is to extract an informed opinion about the world economy, travelling the world to work out which economy is doing what to whom and why.

20 years ago he would have been searching for info that others didn’t have – now his emphasis is sifting through the ridiculous quantities of info and making sense of it so we don’t have to.

That all said, the most obvious indicator to me is that two years ago the outbound flights to the UAE were empty from London and you couldn’t get a standby seat to get home.

If my flight experience was anything to go by, the tide could be showing signs of turning again, for the UAE at least. Here’s hoping.

More Cattle, Less Class – Matt in United Arab Emirates – Part 3 of 4

On Saturday I ran out of things to do.

I didn’t want to go shopping, didn’t have ski gloves to go skiing (did consider this) and I was sunburnt so couldn’t really go outside. Again, one of our suppliers came to my rescue and took us all to the beach for sunset and a cheeky glass of iced Limoncello – erm I mean Coca Cola, had a swim and enjoyed watching the very cool kite surfing – I reckon about 20 kites out – going to have to try it at some point.

I was amazed to hear how so many ex-pats never ever go to the beach despite it probably being one of the lifestyle benefits in the UAE in the first place – there are an awful lot of people living a fully air-conditioned lifestyle which seems just plain crazy in my opinion, although it does get very very hot out here and it hasn’t really cooled off completely yet.

Well rested for a change, I headed to Cityscape Global early and slipped in to the conference with a bunch of VIPs by striding through with my name badge flipped the wrong way. Had a great time following his highness, Sheikh Mohammed’s son around the show and watching the 60 or so strong entourage crowding around whilst the press snapped his photo at different stands.

It was, however, the smallest show I have seen there in nine years. It wasn’t global – in fact it was hyper-local if anything, main developers and government depts. from Abu Dhabi even electing to not take space. The other notable thing was that most of the projects on display were already completed… Individual buildings were flogging apartments which seriously downgraded the quality of the event.

I don’t know what the organisers expected, but making a switch to “global” last minute meant, from what I could see, that they were able to sell possibly one or two more stands – one from Paris and randomly, Invest in Ireland, who really didn’t look like they should be there, but in fairness they were busy!!

The usual scousers (I’ve seen them every year for nine years albeit there were less of them) were flogging Carribean pipe dreams to unsuspecting investors - it was the Cayman Islands last year. Guys, you really need to stop wearing shiny suits and you might pull in a few more Brits… “Why wait to buy land when you can buy land and wait?” Hmm let me think for a minute - cashflow, no access to funding, it will tie up what little capital you have or perhaps it’s just a plain daft, high risk idea?? Guaranteed they’ll have a viable answer for all but the last one, so I’ll stick with that thanks…

There were none of the usual suspects from the UK or Australia architecture scene – Aedas, Benoy, Hyder, SOM, Woods Bagot, Gensler and Fosters were all notable in their absence – all of which had stands last year.

I did hook up with the directors of RMJM who were attending as delegates and still have a lot on in the region who kindly introduced me to the guys at Davis Langdon, sorry AECOM, well it will be by the time I post this…

I did better at Longs Bar, watching the Ryder Cup finale which was very kindly laid on for us thanks to the weather in Wales extending it to an extra day (who would ever lay on an outdoor, weather dependent event in the middle of October in Wales and think it was a smart move? Maybe it was the same organisers as the Commonwealth games again??) Anyway, met a nice chap who is going to introduce me to some guys at a big property fund I’ve been targeting so that was great and a good round off to the evening.

To be continued....

More Cattle, Less Class – Matt in United Arab Emirates – Part 2 of 4

After realising the following day that the “map warming party” might not have the impact we collectively and enthusiastically felt it would the previous evening (you should always try ideas out sober first as well) I quickly cancelled said “party” via email, citing “technical difficulties” and that we had appointed the organisers of the Delhi games to rectify the situation – this prompted amused and positive responses and we got a few meetings out of the whole exercise – job done!!

Despite the best laid plans, my intended clustering of meetings in Abu Dhabi in the first half of the week, followed by Dubai based ones in the second half went awry. I should know by now that any meeting schedule out here is indicative at best. As a consequence I was back on the highway that makes the Bolivian death road look like a relaxing Sunday morning jaunt.

Cityscape Global was due to start on Monday, so I had the chance to spend a weekend in Dubai on my own for the first time. I was lucky in that I have been over enough to establish some good friends who kindly offered to include me in their weekend frivolities.

Politely turning down a kind offer of accompanying some ex-pats to a hugely popular brunch (have done this before - give some Brits an all you can eat and drink free bar and set the stopwatch to count down – carnage ensues – fun, but seriously messy…)

I elected instead to fall asleep by the pool, get sunburnt and then head out to a birthday party where I met at least 3 other ex-pats who had done just that, so we glowed like tomato beacons around the table and chewed the fat over politics, economics and how much it costs to rent a car out here….

To be continued….

More Cattle, Less Class.... Matt in United Arab Emirates Part 1

So it would appear that funding for some of our international clients is starting to lazily make its way to the right places to kick start some projects. In the last few weeks we’ve secured work in Belgium, Holland, Moscow, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

I’m starting to feel like Uncle Travelling Mac (perhaps Matt) from the Fraggles –(showing my age), sending postcards home and dealing with a lot remotely.

This week, I got to travel on the A380 with Emirates for the first time. I’ve been testing ways to get bounced into Business Class and so far the conclusion is offering Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut to the duty manager is the most effective strategy – unless you know a pilot of course…

Sadly on this occasion my efforts were thwarted as I was caught short with just a raisin and biscuit Yorkie which was deemed a sub-standard bribe and did not do the trick…

The other thing to note is that more people, means longer to do everything: checking in, registering at the gate, boarding – it took ages and every single seat on the entire aircraft was taken and there was a long standby list to boot.

Nevertheless, I was excited about the prospect of getting on the most spacious passenger aircraft ever built, that was until I reached my seat to find that the three of us that were due to sit with each other could have played front row for Leicester this weekend. Marvellous, and an overnighter to boot...

What is interesting to note is that 6 months ago, all outbound flights to Dubai were practically empty and all the inbound ones from Dubai were heaving – symptomatic of the exodus of ex-pats fleeing an ailing economy. I was therefore not looking forward to the return journey either.

The main reason for my trip was to assist our Creative Director and General Manager, Jon Wells, launch our long awaited new office in the media freezone within Abu Dhabi, TwoFour54, and to attend Cityscape Global to check out other international opportunities.

Straight from Dubai airport, I travelled to Abu Dhabi by car which is an hour and a half on one of the most aggressively (and badly) driven stretches of motorway you will ever experience. A mixture of locals and ex-pats that choose to live in the livelier Dubai and work in the more prosperous Abu Dhabi, driving at high speed – often on the hard shoulder at 100MPH less than a foot from the car in front. I’ve stopped sitting in the front as I keep imaginary braking – if you try and sleep, you dream about car crashes which really doesn’t help…

The quarterly Twofour54 event was well attended – the media zone itself now has over 90 partners all from the creative services and early indications are proving that this was a good business decision despite the time it has taken to set up there. TDIC (Abu Dhabi’s tourist board) overviewed their museum and cultural development programme which was interesting and we met some great potential partners along the way. I drunkenly dared a PR Consultant to get as many people to our new studio as possible (for a “map warming ceremony”) to view our newly installed world domination map vinyl that we had proudly put up that day…

To be continued….

We are recruiting.............Account Director, London

We are currently seeking an Account Director to work from our London studio.

You will have extensive experience of project and account management in the creative industries, exceptional communication and organisation skills with a proven ability to win and deliver medium to large scale projects and build lasting client relationships - ranging from Identity & Print, Web & Interactive to CG illustration & Animation - both on time and to budget.

You will be managing a small but growing team across our three offices, taking a proactive leadership role as the company expands.

You will be required to liaise with our design, sales and marketing teams and report into the Directors and Board.

Knowledge of SalesForce CRM, Access Focal Point Project Management, InDesign and Photoshop or similar systems would be preferable.

For further information or to apply for the position, please email
richard@assemblystudios.co.uk

We are recruiting…Business Development Manager, Abu Dhabi

We are currently seeking a New Business Manager to work from our Abu Dhabi studio, alongside the UAE General Manager.

A natural communicator, you will have experience of working in both the Middle East and within the creative industries, and possess exceptional client management and relationship building skills. The role could be either full-time or part-time and you will most likely be an accomplished consultative sales executive, account manager or similar, looking for a fresh challenge.

You will be responsible for all aspects of lead generation, client relationship building and the tendering process. If you are excited by the prospect of supporting the growth of the company within the GCC regions and establishing our Abu Dhabi studio as both a market leader and a strategic international hub, then we want to hear from you!

For further information or to apply for the position, please email jonwells@assemblystudios.co.uk

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