Lucky Generals hires Crawford to put design at top table

Lucky Generals is aiming to treat design as a creative force in its own right, making it integral to all of the agency’s work with the appointment of former Saatchi & Saatchi creative Nathan Crawford as its new executive design director.

Crawford, who worked as a creative (as an art director, also at Saatchis) before moving into design, brings a rare combination of design expertise and flair alongside “big idea thinking” and advertising knowledge.

He has been hired as a champion committed to pushing, protecting, and embedding design as a central part of the agency’s creative process, helping shape work from the start.

Crawford’s remit will be to elevate the craft across everything the agency touches, sharpening the look, amplifying the ideas, and making sure every piece of work punches harder as well as building a design offering that stands on its own terms.

An offering with a distinct voice, a strong point of view, and a place at the table from the beginning of the process, in a move designed to earning the discipline recognition not only within the agency but across the industry and beyond.

His appointment follows the recent hiring of Vairi MacLennan as head of content, said to reflect Lucky Generals’ ongoing investment in building a fully integrated creative offering that combines brilliant ideas with deep expertise in digital, design, social, content and platform strategy.

Crawford said: “I’ve always admired Lucky Generals for the strength of their ideas and the clarity of their creative ambition. What excited me most was the chance to build something new, not just elevate design within the agency, but help shape a design offering with its own voice and value. Design is often treated like the final polish, but here, we’re treating it as a creative force from the very start.

Lucky Generals executive creative director Shelley Smoller added: “Nathan is a quiet powerhouse. The kind of leader who earns trust through craft and care. He doesn’t just make things look good. He treats design as an essential part of how an idea lives, breathes, and punches above its weight. He’s here to help our work and our clients go further and build us a design capability that’s not just an internal function, but a creative studio in its own right.”