The ATTIK (latterly known as ATTIK) was a British creative agency founded in 1986 in

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence i ...

, England by James Sommerville and Simon Needham. They are best known for their progressive and influential

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscip ...

style, their series of "Noise" experimental design books, and their work for clients including,

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance bar, temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pembe ...

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a di ...

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

, and

Adidas Adidas AG (; stylized as adidas since 1949) is a German multinational corporation, founded and headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, that designs and manufactures shoes, clothing and accessories. It is the largest sportswear manufacture ...

Overview

ATTIK was founded by Sommerville and Needham in Sommerville's grandma's attic bedroom, with the help of a £2,000 grant from Prince Charles'

The Prince's Trust The Prince's Trust ( cy, Ymddiriedolaeth y Tywysog) is a charity in the United Kingdom founded in 1976 by King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) to help vulnerable young people get their lives on track. It supports 11-to-30-year-olds who are u ...

. By 1990, the company employed eight people and had moved to a rented office space. Sommerville and Needham had also begun experimenting with the newly released Adobe Photoshop software on their 8 kHz

Macintosh Plus The Macintosh Plus computer is the third model in the Macintosh line, introduced on January 16, 1986, two years after the original Macintosh and a little more than a year after the Macintosh 512K, with a price tag of US$2,599. As an evolutiona ...

. In 1992, future partner Will Travis joined the company. By early 1995, ATTIK had grown the Huddersfield team to 25 people, and later that year they opened an office in London, having secured work with Sony's PlayStation brand. Sommerville set up a New York office in January 1997, followed by Travis opening a studio in San Francisco in 1998, and Needham establishing a presence in Sydney in 1999. By the end of 2000, benefitting largely from the

Dotcom boom The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

, the company was turning over $20 million and had 160 staff across its studios in Huddersfield, London, New York, San Francisco, and Sydney. The economic crash of 2001 hit the company hard, and based on the advice of new board member Ric Peralta, 115 staff were let go in order to keep the business afloat. The London, New York, and Sydney studios were closed, leaving Huddersfield and San Francisco as the only locations running. Between 2002 and 2003, the company was in survival mode. However, in 2003, two clients helped to secure the business' immediate future –

Scion Scion may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities *Scion, a playable class in the game '' Path of Exile'' (2013) *Atlantean Scion, a device in the ''Tomb Raider'' video game series *Scions, an alien race in the video game ''B ...

, a new brand from

launching in the U.S. – and the Camel cigarette company in Europe. In 2004, Peralta and Travis were made partners and the Huddersfield office moved to

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...

. A new office was opened in Los Angeles, and New York was reopened. In 2007, ATTIK was acquired by the Japan-based Dentsu Network. The San Francisco studio continued to serve as Scion's advertising

Agency of Record An agency of record (AOR) in advertising and marketing is an agency that is authorized to purchase advertising time (for radio or television advertising) or space (for print or online advertising Online advertising, also known as online ma ...

in the U.S, and ATTIK Leeds partnered with Coca-Cola on series of

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create ...

and design initiatives. In 2012, Sommerville decided to leave the business, citing “a distinct lack of alignment of thinking”, and the company's UK operations were wound down. In April 2015 it was announced that the company would be absorbed by Dentsu following the loss of the long-running Scion advertising account, effectively bringing an end to ATTIK's existence after 29 years of operation

Notable clients

* Coca-Cola *

Nike Nike often refers to: * Nike (mythology), a Greek goddess who personifies victory * Nike, Inc., a major American producer of athletic shoes, apparel, and sports equipment Nike may also refer to: People * Nike (name), a surname and feminine give ...

Lexus is the luxury vehicle division of the Japanese automaker Toyota. The Lexus brand is marketed in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide and is Japan's largest-selling make of premium cars. It has ranked among the 10 largest Japanese ...

* Camel *

LucasArts Lucasfilm Games (known as LucasArts between 1990 and 2021) is an American video game licensor that is part of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development group alongside his film company; as part of a large ...

/Star Wars * Boost Mobile *

Sony Online Entertainment Daybreak Game Company LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. The company was founded in December 1997 as Sony Online Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, but was spun off to an independent investor in ...

* MTV * NFL * Carlsberg *

IGN Entertainment ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distr ...

* AOL *

Virgin Atlantic Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic Airways, and ...

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

Sheppard Robson Sheppard Robson (previously Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners ) is a British architecture firm, founded in 1938 by Sir Richard Herbert Sheppard, with offices in London, Manchester, and Glasgow]. It was particularly influential in the 1950s– ...

References

{{reflist Design companies established in 1986 Graphic design studios Defunct companies of the United Kingdom