Six months, behind closed doors, working with creative directors, founders and agency leaders who’ve gone quiet on themselves.
I’m Nora. Before this, fifteen years as a creative director — at Pentagram, then running my own studio. I’ve sat where you sit.I know the version of stuck that doesn’t look like stuck from the outside.
I started coaching in 2018 after my best designer quit on a Tuesday and told me she hadn’t made anything that felt like hers in three years. We talked for an hour. She didn’t come back — but I did, to the work. This is what I do now. Sixty clients in, mostly leaders of studios you’ve heard of, a handful you haven’t yet.
Two long conversations. We map your pattern. Where the work goes thin, where you flinch, where you over-deliver to avoid the harder thing. Honest, slow, without notes-app jargon.
You're carrying narratives that worked once and don't anymore. We pull them out, look at them in the light, and write better ones. This part feels strange. Then obvious.
A bounded creative bet, with stakes. The point isn't the output — it's the muscle memory of choosing what scares you on purpose. Most clients do this thing twice. Then everything.
Three months of light-touch holding while the new pattern sets. Voice memos, one call a fortnight, the occasional 11pm text. You don't un-become a creative leader — you become a different one.
The flagship. Diagnose, reframe, risk, hold. For one creative leader at a time.
Compressed. For an inflection — a pitch, a launch, a leaving. Weekly, no flinching.
When the creative direction of the company is held by more than one person, and it's gone foggy.
A second opinion on a hard call. For people who don't want a coach — they want a sharp room.
Series B fintech
Rebuilt the design org from the inside.
Independent agency, London
Stopped doing the work, started doing the work.
Design studio, six years in
Got specific about what the studio is for.
Consumer hardware co.
Made the thing that scared her.
Network agency · 200+ creatives
Left, but on his own terms.
“Nora is the only person I’ve paid to disagree with me. She earned it back in the first month.”
“She doesn’t do the “you’re enough” thing. She does the “you’re not, yet, and here’s the part of you that knows it” thing.”
“I expected to feel coached. I felt seen. There is a difference and it’s the whole point.”
For a single, urgent inflection.
The flagship engagement. Most clients are here.
When the direction is held by a team.
One letter a month. Notes from sessions, sharpened. 2,400 readers. No sponsors.
Unsubscribe in one click. Never shared.