GLOBAL – After 11 years in AKQA, Rei Inamoto has announced that he has left the agency.
In a tweet posted in Inamoto’s account on September 19, he posted what looked like a timeline of his advertising career, and for what lies ahead after AKQA, Inamoto stated nothing other than his signature star symbol which, he once told adobo, meant simplicity and consistency.
1999 – 2004: R/GA 2004 – 2015: AKQA 2015 + beyond: ★ Hello world. More soon.
— rei inamoto (@reiinamoto) September 18, 2015
In a statement given to adobo, AKQA has confirmed that Inamoto has indeed left the New York office. Along with the former chief creative officer is the agency’s managing director, Rem Reynolds. According to the agency, AKQA International Managing Director Giles McCormack who has been with them for 7 years will now oversee the New York team.
Inamoto started his advertising career as a creative director at R/GA where he spent five years and became an Executive Creative Director. But he never really considered this as “getting into advertising.” When he graced the cover of adobo, he told us, “I wanted to be in a creative industry. When people ask me how I got into advertising, I tell them I never did.”
He also shared two things that keep him grounded despite the slew of recognition and accolades he’s been getting as one of the most awarded creatives in the industry, “(First) To keep reminding myself that there are way harder jobs out there. (Second) About 10 years ago, I had an accident while playing soccer that led to four surgeries in six months and some serious rehabilitation process. That was, mentally and physically, the hardest thing I’ve ever done. What I do everyday, no matter how difficult it can be, is easy relative to that.”
We have yet to hear from Inamoto what he will be on to next but if his response to adobo’s question back in 2012 regarding the creative fields that he is yet to explore will be a sort of prophecy, then exciting days are definitely ahead: “I think designing an organization needs to be as “creative” as making things. Especially an organization, a company or even an office that produces creative work. So that’d be a territory that I’d like to explore.”
Watch our interview with Rei Inamoto during Spikes Asia 2014 about designing for the future:
