A pair of longtime creatives have made the move you’ve probably been considering for the past couple of years: leaving their jobs at a big name agency to try and make it out there on their own.
Rick Williams and Marcel Yunes have worked together at BBDO New York for more than a decade after starting as copywriter and art director, respectively.
Now, they tell us in the third person: “After an over 10 year run, Creative Directors Rick Williams and Marcel Yunes have bid farewell to BBDO New York. Following a brief break, the pair is planning to freelance and explore some personal projects before taking on their next permanent role.”
You’ve undoubtedly seen some of Williams and Yunes’s work over the past few years as they’ve collaborated on campaigns for clients like HBO, AT&T, Grey Goose and P&G along with these somber spots promoting the 9/11 Memorial Museum.
Williams provided a bit more context on their decision to leave the Omnicom family after such a run.
“We’re on a little quest to understand how the rest of our industry ticks outside of the one, albeit wonderful, agency we know so well,” he said. “David Lubars and Greg Hahn have been amazing to us and we’re grateful to have learned how to lead from them—the only missing piece for us is a better breadth of experience, which led us to here.”
We asked him why they decided to go freelance instead of scoring another full-time gig.
“Rather than jump into something permanent right away the goal is to learn more about how other leaders lead and create, what different structures out there look like, and even what talents people from other disciplines bring, so we can make a more informed decision before taking on our next post,” he said.
Given the fact that they have an extensive portfolio and there are quite a few shops in New York that need creative help but don’t want to expand their rosters, we are pretty sure Rick and Marcel will do fine.