In early 2019, Andrew Barnard and Will Thacker arrived at a simple conclusion. The decade ahead would be defined by disruption.
Shifting technologies, changing consumer values, economic uncertainty, environmental pressures and cultural volatility were already reshaping how organisations operated. For brands, success would increasingly depend on their ability to navigate change, adapt quickly and make confident decisions in uncertain conditions.
The pair believed agencies would need to evolve alongside them.
“When we started the business, we felt the world was changing faster than most agency models were,” says Barnard, co-founder of independent creative agency. “The 2020s were already pointing towards a very different operating environment for brands. We wanted to build something that reflected that reality.”
Founded in 2019, 20(SOMETHING) was designed around a simple idea: that creativity is most valuable when it helps organisations move forward with clarity and confidence.
Rather than building around traditional agency structures, Barnard and Thacker focused on creating a model that could respond to complexity, accommodate change and support clients through increasingly uncertain conditions.
Rethinking the agency model
When Barnard first sketched out the agency’s structure in a Devon pub, the starting point was a simple question: what does effective creativity look like for modern organisations?
The answer was not about scale or hierarchy. It was about creating direct connections between business challenges and creative solutions.
“We wanted to remove as much friction as possible,” Barnard explains. “The focus was on building a structure that allows great people to do their best work and gives clients direct access to senior thinking.”
That thinking shaped a deliberately lean model. Around 75 per cent of the agency’s costs are spent directly on talent, allowing it to invest heavily in strategic and creative expertise while maintaining flexibility and affordability for clients.
The model combines a core team of c. 15 spanning strategy, creative and client leadership with a wider network of specialist partners. This enables projects to be built around specific client needs while maintaining consistency in thinking, delivery and experience.
For Barnard, flexibility is less about agency innovation and more about reflecting the realities clients face every day.
Starting with client reality
While many agencies focus on outputs, 20(SOMETHING) places equal emphasis on context.
Understanding a client's ambitions, constraints, stakeholders and commercial pressures is viewed as fundamental to producing effective work.
“Every organisation operates within its own reality,” Barnard says. “Understanding that context is what allows you to make better decisions together.”
This philosophy underpins the agency’s approach to partnership. Rather than viewing client relationships through the lens of service delivery, the team focuses on helping clients navigate complexity and make informed strategic choices.
“The better we understand where a client is starting from, the better we can help them understand where they can go,” he says.
By investing time in understanding how decisions are made, where challenges exist and what success looks like for brand teams, the agency aims to create clearer pathways from strategy to execution.
Creativity in a crowded world
A defining element of 20(SOMETHING)’s work is visual language: the use of design, identity and communication as strategic tools to shape perception, behaviour and culture.
Barnard believes this has become increasingly important as organisations navigate a landscape defined by fragmented attention, declining trust and rapidly evolving technologies.
“As technology expands what's possible, the role of creativity shifts,” he says. “The challenge isn't simply producing more content. It's creating clarity, distinctiveness and meaning.”
For 20(SOMETHING), visual language is not developed in isolation. It is shaped by the wider forces influencing a brand, its audience and its category.
By understanding those conditions, the studio helps organisations build visual systems, campaigns and communications that remain relevant and resilient over time.
This approach can be seen in its work for The Woolmark Company, which focused on repositioning merino wool as a sustainable alternative to synthetic fabrics.
For Barnard, the project demonstrated how commercial objectives and meaningful impact can work together.
“The most rewarding projects are the ones where business success and positive contribution aren't competing priorities,” he says. “They're reinforcing each other.”
Purpose and what comes next
Central to 20(SOMETHING)’s operating model is a simple principle: contributing to a smarter, cleaner, happier or more beautiful world.
Rather than functioning as a manifesto, Barnard sees this as a practical framework for decision-making — helping guide the kinds of organisations, projects and challenges the agency chooses to engage with.
The same thinking informs its internal culture.
“You can't separate the work from the environment that creates it,” he says. “If you want people to produce thoughtful, ambitious work, you have to create the conditions that allow that to happen.”
Seven years in, the agency is entering what Barnard describes as a more mature phase of growth.
“The early years were about building foundations,” he reflects. “Now we're focused on broadening our impact, deepening our expertise and contributing to bigger conversations.”
Ultimately, 20(SOMETHING) exists to support organisations navigating a decade defined by transformation, and make it through to more optimistic times.
“A cleaner, smarter, happier and more beautiful world isn't a given,” Barnard says. “It's something that's built through decisions, actions and collective effort. If we can help organisations move in that direction, that's where we want to be.”
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