Hello,
I’m Tahirah.
I’m a creative leader who uses storytelling and ideas to foster human connection. I have helped create award-winning integrated campaigns, TVCs and experiential projects for clients including United Airlines, Barbie, Zillow, Nike, Amazon, Allstate and Google.
People. Stories.
I…really care about people, man. And I’ve been calling myself I writer since I was about 4 - yeah, I was a precocious child.
When I was growing up, I didn’t know a career was hiding behind ads on the telly* (British for television). I just knew I loved stories (and words), and perhaps even more than that, I loved how our shared human experience made stories mean something.
That love of people and stories had me filling comprehension books with stories when I was a kid, assistant-producing BBC radio shows, teaching kids how to read at a high school, using my Journalism degree to interview popstars, putting on plays, and on a few disperate-yet-very-connected sidequests in between before and during falling into advertising and carving out a career within it.
15 or so years in, I still love stories + people.
Caring about the craft and the process is how I express that love.
My work style is primarily rooted in care.
Care for my people. Sorry-not-sorry. People matter most. In my experience - empathic, thoughtful leadership makes the work better.
Care for the craft. Obsession over words, the world-building, the design, the strategic underpinning, all of it.
Care for the stories I get to tell - and the people I get to connect with, whether through representing their stories, or reaching them as an audience.
Care for the message I’m conveying for the brands I get to make work on behalf of.
Tech and the tools we use change.
The creative landscape changes.
Briefs evolve.
KPIs shift.
But connecting people to stories is still the MO.
It’s still my why.
When I’m not trying to make campaigns that make you feel, I’m making other things outside of work. (Spoiler, they’re also still rooted in my passion.) Like the publication I co-founded and creative directed, Plantain Papers. And In For 13, the initiative I helped spearhead challenging the advertising industry to get more Black people in leadership by 2023.
Or…I spend the rest of my spare time being bossed around by a 28lb diva dog, and reminding everyone (including myself—mostly myself) to prioritize a little self-care daily.
Get in touch via tahirah.edwardsbyfield@gmail.com