Marina Willer, Partner at Pentagram on how Pentagram works

This month, we sat down with Marina Willer, the iconic partner at Pentagram...

... and asked her some deep questions about her creative journey and what does it mean to be a Pentagram partner.

Watch the full interview to hear more about:

• Pentagram's Creative Power: Unveiling Pentagram's collaborative process and how they achieve design excellence
• Leading with Vision: Marina's take on navigating the partnership model and fostering a thriving company culture
• The Art of Storytelling: Unlocking the secrets to creating unique and impactful designs.
  

😍 Below are some of our favourite insights from the interview with Marina: 

👉 On the ways of working:​

"There's a lot that happens outside of the screen. And I think being able to think both about how to best use everything you can do on-screen and off-screen, and the exchange between the two, is really fascinating. You can learn from methods which are analog and you can learn a lot from technology."

👉 On hiring at Pentagram​

"I look for people with curiosity, wanting to find different ways of doing things. Of course, talented people, people who can make beautiful things, but I'm more and more looking for unusual ways of working because I see design around… If you want to look at Instagram or whatever, it's so similar to what everyone else is doing."

🤖 On AI

"The obvious thing about AI becoming a central center of discussion puts a lot more pressure on us as creatives, both in learning to use technology well and also in not relying on technology to think for us. I think we need to be able to instigate and create things that have the emotional connection that perhaps AI isn't able to do. And for the moment, there is a lot that AI cannot do. I think us being able to drive, not be driven by AI, but be able to use AI as a tool that opens new paths is very exciting."

💛 On leadership

"Sometimes leadership is very competitive and is trying to set up people to compete against each other. I don't like that. Whether it's more efficient or not, I don't know."

💛 On Pentagram Partnership

"Some people love running a company. I think we happen to run a company here, but we do it collectively, and the collective wisdom has helped us over the years to finesse how we do that. There is something that is collectively developed by a group of people running a ship, and it's different to a more hierarchical model or a model where there are many layers between the client and the people creating the work."

Want to go further?

Learn hands-on from leaders at Pentagram, Wolff Olins, Zaha Hadid Architects, Saatchi & Saatchi, Google, Amazon, and many more on our Design Leaders Programme.