Jay Scott Nicholls

A long-standing love of visual storytelling. There's no substitute. Immersive media just expands the canvas.

Circus is an award-winning creative agency, based in London, and specialised in immersive interactive content. It is on a mission to inspire the world's most exciting brands to do things virtually. Using 360, 3D, VR, AR and metaverse techniques to create bespoke digital experiences which engage audiences and drive action - be it taking physical locations online, selling remotely, amplifying launches and events or recruiting and training talent.

Creativity is where ideas and execution combine.

Creativity is rarely a goal in itself. It always has an aim in mind. To inform, inspire or influence. So a successful idea or design isn't judged by how creative or innovative it is, but by whether its execution delivers the intended outcome.

Nowadays we are spoilt for choice when it comes to sources of inspiration and tools to realise our concepts. The obvious and most recent revolution has been AI, which makes it possible to rapidly prototype creative concepts. There's been a lot made of AI as a threat to the creative industry, but it's just another tool.

Collaboration. The old cliche that a camel is a horse designed by committee is wrongheaded. A camel is perfectly evolved for its environment, shaped by varied pressures through thousands of incremental improvements. Now there are certainly times when a creative vision has had to be compromised by technical or political constraints, but more often than not the best work is co-created.

We're geeks, so we love trying out new technology and tools. And since all our work is bespoke, every project starts with a blank page. It forces us to think afresh each time.

Certainly being based in a culture-rich cosmopolitan city like London means we have access to new ideas and storytelling techniques. That's a great privilege.

This award is an opportunity to celebrate the hard work of the team, and to recognise our client who was such a pleasure to collaborate with.

We collaborated with design agency I-AM to create a Virtual Reality experience which showcased KFC's vision for their restaurant of the future. It was a huge hit at events and now the rest of the brands who share the parent company want to do one!

Bringing a static environment to life always requires thought. Usually it involves animations to introduce movement and audio to engage another sense, thereby helping to complete the illusion and 'sense of place'.

Awards always spur us on to try new things and deliver work for our clients that's not just answering a brief, but is award-worthy.

The people. The variety. The technology.

London and the UK more broadly attracts talent. It's a true melting pot.

We're predicting a revolution in how people consume digital content - driven by the rise of wearable technology. Suddenly people will have instand heads-up access to the world's information, overlaid onto their visual and auditory landscape. And much of the hardware we take for granted today will melt away.

Try things. Keep an eye on what's happening, not just in your immediate field but adjacent creative or technical fields. Inspiration can come from anywhere. We recently built a virtual experience for a university that was inspired by TikTok's onboarding sequence!

Take your pick. And it depends on what you're creating. But everyone should be conversant in generative AI.

Nice try!

Too many to name. But honestly, and at the risk of sounding trite, my kids. They create with joyfully and without self-consciousness, they enquire about the world with a literal open-mind, and they're definitely not afraid to say what they think!

Lift your head and set aside time for the things which are important. Too often then get postponed in favour of what's urgent.

I'll save it for the next award! ;)