Angela Kirkwood

Reason for nomination

Over the past 17 years Stand has developed a reputation as one of Scotland’s leading creative agencies specialising in branding and brand comms. We are one of the most awarded agencies for both creativity and design effectiveness. This has helped put us in the enviable position of being able to attract top quality creative staff into the business. 

Angela Kirkwood is up there with the very best creative talent that we have had the pleasure of working with. She joined Stand from Whitespace in November 2018 and has become one of our most interesting rising stars at the creative core of the agency.

Angela is extremely ambitious and has found herself in central position within the creative team at Stand in the space of about a year and a half. She is not afraid to question a brief and to push boundaries. She is the kind of person that constantly surprises us with ideas and creative execution in ways that we just didn’t expect. Exactly the kind of talent that we look for in our business. On top of that she is very resilient - able to listen to criticism, evaluate it and respond well - she’s very professional in the way that she works and in the way that she relates to colleagues and clients alike.

One of the really important aspects of her work is her ability to turn her hand at various different kinds of creative work. She’s equally at home thinking through a creative brand strategy as she is working on a campaign, a website, a piece of brand packaging or an experiential exhibition. Something that is crucially important working for an agency. Her ability to ask the right analytical questions helps to take her through a learning curve very quickly. A trait that is central to our success as an effective creative agency.

She has produced some top quality pieces of work that we take great pride in, across a broad range of our clients. Work for Muirhead Leather, their 1840 sub-brand, University of the West of Scotland, Glasgow School of Art, The Glasgow Distillery Co., The National Galleries of Scotland and Blazing Griffin.

Angela has become an important part of the Stand creative team, and we wholeheartedly believe that she has the talent and the ability to become a major player in the design industry. We look forward to helping her realise that ambition.

Description of work

UWS Undergraduate Guide 2021   UWS approached Stand to redesign their undergraduate guide, with a desire to create something that would pack a punch and stand out at overcrowded recruitment fairs.    Through use of colour and bold kinetic typography, we were able to capture the energy and youthfulness of the undergraduate programme, while creating a document that would be visually disruptive and help UWS to stand out in busy recruitment environments.        G52 Botanical Vodka   We designed and developed brand and packaging for Glasgow Distillery’s newest product, G52 Botanical Vodka.    The design reflects the hand-crafted nature of the distillation process and the freshness of the ingredients used. The soft colours reflect the subtlety of the natural flavour, created by the distillation process.        National Galleries of Scotland Posters   National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) required a campaign to promote  their summer season of exhibitions, with Bridget Riley as the headline at the RSA.    The campaign was inspired by Riley’s ideas around viewer participation and the different ways we see – “Art is a social act. My work is completed by the viewer.”    The central aim of the campaign was to make the galleries feel more accessible by highlighting the varied, humorous and nuanced observations of the gallery goers themselves. Showing that we can all have a view, no matter our background and that at NGS there is something for everyone.     Plantasia Zine   Plantasia is an exploration of 70s New Age plant culture, inspired by Mort Garson’s 1974 album of the same name. It is a celebration of plants and the people who love them.   The zine explores the plantmania  of the time period and the pseudo-scientific investigations on plant sentience – including experiments on plant telepathy; the type of music favoured by plants and even musical performances by plants for humans.       Block   After discussing the frustrations around creative block with designer Liah Moss, we experimented with exercises to overcome it. ‘Block’ was the outcome of these experiments, an online tool to overcome creative block for creatives of all backgrounds.   Viewed here: tiny.cc/82bmnz   FOUR Four is a start up personal training service, that is based around the four key principles of a well-rounded fitness regime; strength, endurance, flexibility and mind.    Classes are held both indoors and outdoors and the identity takes inspiration from the environment classes are often held in such as sports courts, running tracks and pavements. The approach was to keep it clean, graphic and bold to help it stand out against competitors.