Spotlight on Isoline: A conversation with Gia Mussini, Creative Director

Another day, another Isoline spotlight! This time, we’re talking to our brilliant Creative Director, Gia Mussini. Gia joined the agency in 2019 and has been instrumental in growing our offering, especially in terms of design. We’ve asked her about her long and winding career journey, what designs she’s proudest of, and what her brief stint as an au pair taught her about leading a team.

Why don’t you give me a rundown of what your current position is at Isoline?

Well, as of last week, I’m Isoline’s Creative Director. A really exciting – and somewhat intimidating – jump, but I know I’ve worked really hard for it, so it feels good and I’m excited for what’s ahead.

Prior to that, what’s your career path looked like up until Isoline?

It wasn’t really a path, but more like a maze. I tried so many things. First and foremost, I’m a musical theatre kid, which had a big impact on the decisions I made. The first thing I did after school was try to become an engineer. A few months in I realised I didn’t have any time for dancing, so I gave that up.

Then I went on to study event management and PR, which taught me a lot of skills like making decisions quickly and managing people. But it was also tiring, and I didn’t learn as much as I’d wanted.

Later, I did social media for small businesses in Argentina, where I’m from. Then, I came to England as an au pair and spent a year just babysitting kids. I learned English from children, so when I started to work in offices a bit later, I’d often say things like, “My tummy hurts.” I just didn’t know how to speak English any other way.

Then, at the end of the year, I finally started at Isoline. Initially, they didn’t know what to do with me, so I started on the client management side, slowly moving on to design and ending up as the Creative Director.

How do you think that combination of experiences has helped shape your work here?

It helped me develop knowledge about leading people, which was really useful when I started building a team of designers at Isoline. Of course, learning PR gave me tangible knowledge, like what a marketing funnel is. But overall, every experience was helpful in some way. For example, I sing to my team every day and hope it makes them happy.

Off the back of that, what was your biggest challenge in scaling up the Isoline design offering?

Initially, it was difficult getting the buy-in from the team, as Isoline’s bread and butter was B2B copywriting from the very start. When I began to focus more on the design, people began to worry about what the processes might look like, which frustrated me. I’m not one for bureaucracy, I find processes difficult, so it was a steep learning curve trying to set up a design team and figuring out our day-to-day. It was a lot of trial and error. But I think we built something nice!

How does it feel, looking back, to know that you’ve played a huge part in what Isoline is today?

I’m really proud. I think we made a lot of mistakes along the way, but the end result is great. And now that the client teams truly cooperate with the designers, that is great to see. I also like to see when the design team create something of their own without my input, I think that really shows that the processes I set up years ago work and everything just flows.

Great. I’d also love to see your point of view on how you keep the design team creative while balancing expectations from the client.

Of course, client teams are very different from the design team, because we aren’t client-facing. That means that if we’re not careful, we can end up doing the same thing over and over again, especially if we assign specific design team members to a specific client. Instead, we made sure to build client guidelines for each of our clients, so that if someone is on holiday, there isn’t a problem. That also ensured that the team had variety and they didn’t get bored. Also, if a specific client has asked us to do a really interesting project, then everyone can chime in and it’s not a situation where you’re just doing your day-to-day boring thing while everyone else is having fun.

It’s also important that we all keep learning, from the most junior designers to the most experienced people. I make sure to push everyone forward so that they don’t have a chance to get bored.

Finally, we also like to try things out for our own in-house marketing. That way, everyone can have a “pet project” and follow that end-to-end, like our podcast. That’s how we keep everyone happy and balance the creativity with client expectations.

What would you say is your favourite part of the job?

The team, of course. They’re funny, and they’re nice to each other. It’s great to have a Monday morning call that ends up being like a really nice conversation with friends.

I also love that they’re so eager to learn. I can come up with a massive or mad project, and I can always count on them to learn how to make it come true.

The team always challenges themselves, and I love a challenge, too, so that’s a nice thing to have.

Are there any specific campaigns or assets that you’re particularly proud of from this year?

It’s so hard to pick! In terms of whole campaigns, I think we all loved working on a campaign all about broccoli for our agritech client, Verdant. We all learnt a lot about the client but also about broccoli. Did you know you could eat broccoli flowers, for example?!

For that client, we created animated slides, infographics, and one-pagers for social media, and even an animated explainer video.

The other thing I’ve really enjoyed this year is bringing more interactivity into design. For example, if we have something like a full on-page report or sales deck, we can make it completely interactive so the client can go through it by themselves. I like those kinds of things.

And looking back further, have you got any favourite projects from your earlier years at Isoline?

The first thing I did that was a bit different was record a series of interviews at MWC a few years ago. I think we did it two years in a row, and that was a really nice experience. It brought me back to my event management years. Plus, MWC is obviously a massive event, so it’s really nice to go. I also loved going to meet clients after the COVID years. It was a lovely project.

So, you’ve said a lot about how we’re always trying new things, seeing what works and what doesn’t. What do you think makes Isoline unique?

All of us have the client on our minds constantly. For example, the other day I attended a marketing event, and the whole time I was thinking about what could work for all my clients. That constant focus on the client and the ideas that we could propose to them makes us different.

Even the designers, who don’t have a direct relationship with the client, know everything there is to know about them. They know their names, what the company does, and their industry. And they always come to me proposing things we could do for them.

I’d also say we’re open to any challenge. There are a lot of things we haven’t done before, but we’re eager to try them. Currently, we’re working on creating a 3D interactive infographic for a client that was a real headache at the start. But now that we’ve sorted it, it all looks great. I love challenges like that, they make me happy – and it’s also what’s best for the client.

Ready to work with a unique agency?

If you want to work with a team that is always on the hunt for new creative ideas for your brand, look no further.

Speak to us now at hello@isolinecomms.com