Bringing Our Work Home: Married Creatives
Them: … we spend more time in the office with our colleagues than we do with our other halves …
Us: Ha, idiots
Why are we so smug? Well, we’re a married creative team so if anything, we spend too much time together.
Most people freak out a little when they hear we’re married and we work together. That’s fair, it is a bit freaky, but it’s also quite fun, and a lot easier than most people expect. We’ve not murdered each other (yet), and we don’t have mad big domestics, or PDAs, in the office. We trust each other completely and we have an intimate understanding of one another’s abilities, skills, and capabilities. Crucially we can also build on each other’s ideas in that way that’s unique to married couples – with lovingly brutal honesty. We can say pretty much anything to each other, because ultimately, we know it’s about the work.
It all started at uni. Kinga came to the UK from her native Poland, and Sam had moved back home from Vietnam. Naturally for such worldly people, we met in the most romantic town on earth - High Wycombe. We both attended the brilliant Bucks Ad School. We were put on a brief together and we started seeing each other soon after. Our working and romantic relationships went pretty great, so we’ve just never stopped doing both.
Currently, we’re lucky enough to be working at Brave, a phenomenal agency off the Strand. As well as being in an excellent location for a date night, the agency has a creative, kind, and open environment that’s a breath of fresh air in what can be quite a brutal industry.
Our relationship has its obvious working advantages; lockdown – together, ill – together, remote working – together, holiday – together, working late – you get it.
We’re a creative team. Endlessly. This major advantage leads to the one problem - our work and home lives inevitably merge. We start talking social briefs on a Sunday, or we’ll do our weekly shop on a Tuesday. I don’t mind the latter so much and the former is manageable too, it’s been the reason for us cracking more than one challenging brief.
When it’s really too much, we make sure we get time to ourselves by indulging in hobbies that require absolutely no communication at all. Portraiture, illustration, crochet, reading… thinking about it, Kinga has read at least 29 books this year alone… maybe we need to rethink things… oh well, that’s a breakdown for later.
In short, every creative team wants their partner to succeed - we’ve just made it very official.
Lots of love
Sam and Kinga
