They say the hardest part of advertising isn’t coming up with new ideas; it’s escaping the old ones. They also say you should never use a drop shadow, but that’s a different conversation.

I’m Zain, an award-winning and sometimes award-losing associate creative director (Art Based), which is really just a fancy way of saying I’ve spent the last 15 years translating “make it pop” into campaigns people actually care about.

I build ideas from feelings first. The kind of feelings you get standing somewhere unfamiliar at 3 AM, and sometimes at 3 PM. My work lives happily somewhere between advertising, film, internet culture, design, and human observation.

Over the years, I’ve led creative teams in Asia and across the MENA region for JWT, Leo Burnett, Omnicom, DDB, WT, and VML, steering the ship for giant brands like Dubai Tourism, HSBC, Samsung, PepsiCo, BAT and Beiersdorf. Along the way, I’ve picked up some Cannes, Clios, Effies, Dubai Lynx, and a few gray hairs, mostly by convincing clients that safe ideas are sometimes the boring ones. I believe the best is yet to come.