About

Creative Direction
+ Production.

Nicolas Abou

01 / 06

Red Dot Award

Red Dot Award

Most creative directors come up through the camera. I came up through strategy. So you get one partner from the first idea to the final frame.

Strategy-led, so the content has meaning, made to elevate the brand, not fill the calendar. The brands I work with rebook, because the work is impactful and the relationship is easy.

The methodology

Brand first.

Unmistakable.

Refined.

Built for editorial, social, press, and print.

Point of view

Anyone can shoot what's in front of them. I shoot what your brand needs. 

That's creative direction.

01The arc

2014–2021

IBM's experience agency

Strategy & Experience Lead, Senior Consultant

Seven years leading digital experience strategy. LGS rebrand drove a 50% engagement lift. Four national creative awards for internal culture campaign work.

2022–2023

Signifly

Head of Strategy, Brand & Digital, North America

DivaCup rebrand lifted sales 150%+. BMO Digital Banking Platform earned a Red Dot Design Award. Led the multi-year digital experience roadmap and senior leadership workshops.

2024–present

Origine Strategic Studio

Founder

Strategic creative studio for brands where meaning drives the business. Dr. Bita House of Brands transformation. Atelier Talule visual identity. Founding the studio formalized what I had been doing inside agencies for a decade.

Parallel · 2016–present

Production direction

Photography · Video · Creative Direction

Direct production for Apple, American Express, Google, TAG Heuer, Montblanc, Breitling, Michael Kors, Sephora, L'Oréal, Nespresso, Lululemon, Airbnb, Amazon, LinkedIn, NFL Canada, and others. 210 frames delivered for Amex F1 at the Canadian Grand Prix, featured in Fashion Magazine and used by BT/A on their public Amex case study page.

How I work

It starts with the brand, not the shot list. Who you are, and what the content has to carry, shapes every choice after.

01

Understand the brand

I read the brand back to you first: what you stand for, who it is for, and what the content needs to do. Everything else follows that.

02

Build the shoot

Then I build it. Story, angles, locations, and casting are planned, so the day is deliberate rather than improvised.

03

Shoot for difference

On set I shoot for range and for difference. Swap your logo out, and the frames should still look like no one else's.

04

Refine and deliver

Every frame is refined to standard and mapped to where it will live. You get options that serve the brand, not just deliverables.

The weight of each stage shifts with the work. A brand build, a campaign, and a fast social mandate each ask for something different.

02Taste

Warm tones. Clean compositions. Candid energy, even when directed.

I want the work to feel like the brand at its best. Elevated but not false. Editorial ambition applied to every brief, whether it is a three-day campaign or a half-day shoot. South of France sensibility. Modern, not nostalgic. Restraint over spectacle.

03Recognition

  • Red Dot Design Award

    BMO Digital Banking Platform · 2022

    Strategy lead at Signifly, North America. US rollout 2026.

  • Four national creative awards

    IBM experience agency internal culture campaigns · 2014–2021

    Strategy & Experience Lead, IBM's experience agency, Montreal.

  • Graduated with Highest Honours

    Global Double Bachelor, SKEMA + Concordia · 2014

    Management & Business Administration, International Business.

04Location

Based between Montréal and London.

Available worldwide. Comfortable on set in English and French. Production networks active in Montréal, Toronto, and London. Back and forth between the two home bases.

Beyond production

I founded Origine Strategic Studio for the work that has to start with the foundation. Brand strategy. Visual identity. Positioning and messaging architecture. When the brief needs more than execution, when the foundation has to be built before the campaign goes out, that is where the work lives.

Origine Strategic Studio

Start a project

Every brief leaves better than it arrived.