You hire a creative for their vision - do you squeeze them into your template?

You've heard the analogy of a brand as a persona. I used to ask clients if their brand was a person what kind of music would it listen to. It was an apparently frivolous question, on the face of it any way. Marketers in tune with their brand's identity would have little difficulty in articulating the mixtape of their offspring's life - mainly because it was their customer's soundtrack too - one client described a character I would have enjoyed hanging out with, probably in a dingy late night roadhouse bar, listening to Chicago blues, drinking beer and bourbon to chase it. That's the convention. So it follows you would articulate your BrandStory down to the nth degree. When you brief your ad agency or graphic designer you will introduce them the character that has form and substance. It may even have history and heritage. 

But what happens when your designer has a brand of their own? You are attracted to the work they have done for other clients. There's a thread to it. It's recognisably theirs. Can the two persona co-exist? Can two egos occupy the same space? Must one sublimate to the other?

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