Yorkshire design entrepreneur shares his meteoric rise to the top of the Coca Cola Company

ONE of the speakerhighlights of this year’s Visual Media Conference was Huddersfield-born James Sommerville, vice president of global design for the Coca Cola Company.

Robert McClements, chief executive of organisers CDi Yorkshire introduced Mr Sommerville at Leeds Beckett University’s Rose Bowl, who appeared “using the wonders of technology” to the audience via a video link from France.

Now in its third year the VMC, organised by CDi Yorkshire “the Network of Networks” saw more 300 registrations and an audience nearly triple the size of the first VMC.

Robert McClements, CEO of CDi Yorkshire, said, “We wanted to focus on any channel that a marketing director would spend their budget on – that ranged from social, PR, print, augmented reality through to TV. “

Mr Sommerville was originally the co-founder of design agency Attik, launching in Toronto and Amsterdam, and has led many global brand campaigns for Virgin Atlantic and Baileys.

But Mr Sommerville’s career didn’t start off as glamourous as it sounds.

Mr Sommerville is a Yorkshireman from Huddersfield, and attended Leeds Beckett University. He started Attik with his art school friend Simon Needham and a £1,000 loan from the Prince’s Trust.

“It’s a huge sum of money when you’re 19 years old with no startup capital. It gave us confidence, and that is what it [the Prince’s Trust] has been doing for 40 years,” he told a packed audience.

“We built our small agency in a manageable way,” he said. This enabled them to expand Attik into multiple countries, catching the eye of The Coca Cola Company, as well as Japanese agency Dentsu, which acquired Attik in 2007.

Mr Sommerville left Attik in 2013, moving over to his former client, but he wasn’t so sure to start with.

The first logo, not many people know, was drawn by an accountant in the Coca Cola finance department. It has now become one of the most recognised and memorable logos in the world.

Mr Sommerville said: “Coke has done everything in design, it is almost 130 years-old and it’s a marketing machine. I was wondering what I could do to make a difference.”

With 400 brands in the Coca Cola Company, he had a lot to play with, and Coke is a “round canvas” he said.

“Everything is driven by the shape of the bottle,” said Mr Sommerville, and turning a traditional shape into a contemporary logo has been the challenge.

“Context is king, has to work on packaging, drive things towards growth,” said of his designs, which are “Norman Rockwell meets Instagram” according to the artist, and it will keep changing.

James Sommerville’s three top tips for budding entrepreneurs:

Don’t be impatient. “I wanted to succeed quickly, but as i’ve grown older, I’ve learnt to be more patient. At that small company, I wanted to be a big company, now I’m at a big company and I want to think like a smaller company.”
Do things that are beyond comfort level. “It can be very rewarding, the ability and willingness to take risks will take you far.”
Limit what you borrow. “In terms of cash as well as goodwill. I received that tip from my dad.”