Daily Inspiration: Meet Nils Davey

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nils Davey.

Hi Nils, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am originally from England where I trained and graduated in graphic design and illustration in London. On graduating from university I opened a boutique design agency ‘Binary & the Brain’ with my college buddy and business partner Simon Dovar. For a number of years, we serviced UK businesses with award-winning creative design, branding and packaging design. Eventually, I was struck with wanderlust and decided to immigrate to the United States where I began to develop clients and agencies for my solo practice. I specialised in branding, commercial treatments and record sleeve design. In early 2016 I took on a freelance creative direction job to design and develop a 2016 Grammy Party, a partnership for performances of nominated artists between Mastercard and the Grammys. This led to creative directing a number of experiential and event jobs over the next five years including work at Coachella, NBA All Star Week, Lollapalooza and more.

In recent years I decided to become more hands on with the design and execution of events and started a small agency ‘PBZ’ that integrates with brands, larger agencies, and talent to creative direct, fabricate and interior design immersive experiences. In 2022 we were awarded a BizBash 2022 award for our work. We have a solid roster of clients that appreciate our hands-on work ethic, flat company structure, transparency and creative output. We think of ourselves as hot sauce. Everything is better with it.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Overall my time in experiential has been a smooth journey of learning, creating and executing projects both large and small. In terms of obstacles and challenges, I have had to learn business management, pitching and client relations.

One major road bump in the experiential industry is identifying bad actors. As a relatively new industry, there are a number of people who are chancers who are just trying to take advantage of an emergent industry where clients are investing a lot of money. There are a number of former club promotors, fixers and middlemen that position themselves as gatekeepers and creatives that do not have client interests at heart.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
As a creative director, I pride myself in being hands-on. In contrast to most agency CD’s who have to oversee a large number of projects, PBZ develops a workload that allows us to give our full attention to each project to provide the best possible creative work and client care. We are as likely to pass on a project than take it on as we find curation and client service to be essential to our working practices. We’ve created some really memorable experiences in the past three years from a livable shipping container experience for Bad Bunny to Harry Styles’ Coachella pop-up store for Pleasing. We always try to maximize the creative side of any project by advising and shepherding projects with an eye toward innovative thinking and new solutions.

In my spare time, I spend a lot of time creating photography and working on craft projects. In direct opposition to creative direction, which can take a long time to develop with a number of stakeholders, photography offers complete freedom and instant results so acts as a great chance of pace.

What were you like growing up?
Growing up in England I was definitely introverted. I grew up in a small suburban village in the south and suffered from high anxiety about pretty much everything. Nuclear bombs, the environment, the cold war, life and death all affected me at a young age. When I found an outlet in fine art, comic books, manga and design it enabled me to release some of that anxiety so I decided to pursue it as a career from the age of 14.

It was only when I reached my mid 20’s that I gained some self-confidence and anxiety management that has enabled me to become successful in my career. Now I’m in my mid 40’s anything seems possible.

Contact Info:

• Website: nilsdavey.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/nilsdavey
• Other: peebeezee.com