SYDNEY — David Nobay, founder and creative chairman of agency Marcel Sydney, is set to depart the agency this month to launch a new venture, Imperfect Circle, with boutique post production company Fin Design + Effects. Fin is a boutique design and VFX house, founded in 2001, with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Shanghai and Singapore. Nobay led the inception of the Publicis-owned agency in November 2015, bringing along Tiger Beer as a foundation client, on the back of the closure of Droga5 Sydney. In 2018, Tiger Beer announced it would be transferring its account within the Publicis Groupe from Sydney to Singapore.
Photo: Nobay and Daines
"Like most of us, I still can't claim to predict what the future looks like for advertising,” says Nobay. “But I'm pretty sure what it doesn't: It's not rigid; not locked into geography or channel. To thrive again, it has to be more gymnastic. None of which is exactly rocket-science!"
Imperfect Circle is designed around a ‘creative consultancy model’ that will facilitate genuinely collaborative projects - primarily in arts and media. Nobay will take up the mantle of partner and creative director across Imperfect Circle's five offices on March 1st.
"Nobby and I have collaborated on film projects for years,” explains Emma Daines, founder of Fin. “He's great fun to work with and we share an obsession with craft. For some time, I've been musing about bringing in a creative partner to help Fin re-imagine a stand-alone creative group to work across our current offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Shanghai, as well as our upcoming offices in Singapore and LA. We wanted it focused on immersive technology, but with a very different creative slant. As soon as we started talking to Nobby, we knew we had found our partner."
Fin will have an equity stake in Nobay's MyFavouriteChild consultancy.