Exclusive: Five former MullenLowe designers join the creative studio in the US; global design leads Lisa Smith and Jhy Turley speak to LBB’s Ben Conway about how they’re scaling and integrating the discipline further in 2026.

Since Lisa Smith joined as global chief design officer in July 2025, Uncommon has been intent on scaling its design practice across New York, London and Stockholm.

While the London team was already well-established, Lisa turned to the American office – only two years old when she joined, and with just two designers – to implement design as a central creative force within the New York studio.

To achieve this, she's built a close partnership with chief creative officer Sam Shepherd to integrate the craft across all creative teams, and has brought in talent who reflect her level of ambition for the discipline at Uncommon. “We’ve made real progress,” Lisa exclusively tells LBB. “The team is growing with intent, and design is now embedded from the outset, whether that’s design-led projects pulling in creative and comms, or broader creative briefs embedding design early. That’s starting to show in the work. But we’re still building and that’s the exciting part.”

he team has just hired five new designers, all formerly from MullenLowe, to join the more than 50 professionals in the studio’s global design practice. Based in New York and LA, the new hires – João Paz and Fabio Brigido (ex-heads of design at the MullenLowe Design Studio), Christian Meissner (former head of motion design at MullenLowe U.S.), and design directors Samuel Simões and Rafa Rosa – bring a mix of motion, CGI and conceptual design expertise, as well as international perspectives from Brazil, Portugal and the US.

Uncommon co-founder Nils Leonard has called the hires “one of the greatest talent heists of all time”, as the designers join what Lisa describes as “the most rock’n’roll design team in the world”.

“For us, that ‘rock’n’roll’ attitude is about energy, taste, and a willingness to challenge conventions,” she says. “In design, that means work with a clear point of view. We encourage people to push ideas, care about the details, and bring their own influences into what they make. Culturally, it comes down to trust. Creating an environment where people feel empowered to experiment, take risks and contribute openly. That’s where the most interesting work comes from.”

​Jhy Turley, global design managing director at Uncommon, tells LBB that Uncommon had always aimed to scale design at the New York studio in early 2026. Though, bringing in a group all from one company wasn’t the original plan.

“Several things aligned,” he says. “Lisa already knew João and Fabio’s work. We’d been in conversation with Christian. And the Omnicom announcement to fold MullenLowe into the wider group created a natural inflection point. It quickly became clear there was an opportunity to bring in a ready-made, highly creative team that had made jealousy-inducing work in the past. Sometimes timing does the work for you, and this was one of those moments.”

Jhy believes that bringing in a team that already understands how to work together gives Uncommon an immediate advantage, and helps the incoming talent hit the ground running. That said, Uncommon doesn’t operate in fixed units.

He explains, “We build teams around the needs of each project. We’re a fully integrated studio, and design works across everything we do. There will absolutely be moments where they work together, but just as often, they’ll be embedded across different teams, collaborating with the wider design and creative department. The goal isn’t to keep them as a unit – it’s to sprinkle their magic across the whole.”

In just two years since opening its New York studio, Uncommon has already delivered a wide range of standout work for clients including SiriusXM, Guinness, BritBox and Electronic Arts – earning plenty of silverware along the way. But a recent project for Barcelona’s OFFF Festival of Creativity and Design particularly embodies the creative studio’s ethos – where idea and design become inseparable.

Built around “a kind of living magic trick”, Uncommon invited members of the creative community into its London and New York studios for a series of mixer events and quietly collected biological traces from shared surfaces – imprints, fibres, fragments of presence. That material then became the foundation of the OFFF design system.

“Forms, textures and patterns were generated directly from those traces, turning something invisible into something visible,” says Lisa. “The result was a design and motion language rooted in the physical imprint of the creative community itself, making the audience not just participants, but the source of the work.”

Following this work and the five new hires, Lisa declares the main ambition as “building a practice that can deliver at scale while maintaining a clear point of view” – a new era to be defined by how deeply design is embedded in everything the studio does, from brand identity and systems to campaigns, experiences and activations, product design and environmental design.

“These hires accelerate that ambition immediately,” she says. “They bring craft, fresh perspective and a wealth of experience, allowing us to scale. Just as importantly, they strengthen the culture. This isn’t about growing for the sake of it – it’s about raising the bar.”

"We’re expanding both depth and range,” she adds, describing how Uncommon will be growing its design capabilities. “That means strengthening core areas like brand identity and systems, while pushing further into motion, packaging design, product design and spatial design. A big focus is on connected thinking: building design systems that live seamlessly across platforms rather than in isolated outputs.”

“The arrival of our new team members truly allows us to expand our capabilities,” adds Jhy. “Designing for impact is where the magic happens – it’s the ability to drive big ideas that fundamentally reshape a brand and leave a lasting mark. That journey of refining and shaping work to set new standards is truly exciting, but it ultimately scales through the mastery of robust design systems that amplify that impact across every touch point.”

With this holistic approach to design as a North Star, Uncommon’s ‘School of Athens’ approach will allow the new designers to collaborate with the other talent across all disciplines, teasing out the most ambitious creative visions at different intersections of craft.

As Lisa affirms, “The most exciting work [in the industry] is happening where design is treated as a strategic driver, not a finishing touch…”