Role
Art direction
Client
Financial Times × Auriens
Project type
Integrated advertising campaign
Context
An advertising campaign developed for Auriens’ high-net-worth audience, spanning health technology,
financial planning, travel, and the arts. The work began with the development of the core visual
lock-up,
aligning FT, Auriens, and the overarching campaign identity into a single, coherent system.
Approach
Defined a surreal, collage-led visual language that combined photographic imagery with illustration to
reflect the intellectual curiosity and lifestyle aspirations of the audience. Established a set of
visual guidelines for illustrators — defining tone, compositional principles, recurring motifs, and
stylistic boundaries — ensuring consistency and coherence across all executions. The direction
balanced
modernity and wit with elegance and restraint, favouring conceptual clarity over overt decoration.
Deliverables
Motion-led digital executions for leaderboards, half pages, and MPUs; print advertising; event
marketing
collateral; and a suite of social assets, all designed to operate consistently across platforms while
maintaining a cinematic, editorial feel.
Delivery team
Illustration — Giulio Cipone, Paola Handley
Motion Graphics — Jay Amadi
Web Development — Niv Suresh
Flexible lock-ups designed to work across light and dark environments, maintaining clarity, hierarchy, and editorial authority at multiple scales.
Full-page print feature introducing NextAct, the Financial Times × Auriens editorial series. Designed to translate the campaign’s visual language into a considered, long-form print experience, balancing editorial authority with an aspirational, forward-looking narrative on later life.
Selected photographic and illustrative elements used as raw material for the collage system. Assets were intentionally sourced across disparate subjects and scales, then deconstructed, recontextualised, and recomposed to build a coherent visual language for the campaign.
NextAct launched as a branded content hub within Financial Times, extending seamlessly across Life & Arts and FT Weekend to blend long-form storytelling with native editorial credibility.
